Vermillion Shorelines
by Paradigm of Writing
Summary: The waves lapel at the shore, and the stench of flesh and copper is foul on the winds above. Twenty-four pairs of eyes look around and the dread begins to sink in. Boom, boom. The cannons begin. Boom, boom. One tribute will win. Boom, boom. Twenty-three shall die. Boom, boom. The 200th Hunger Games has arrived. The vermillion shorelines of Panem shall bleed again. (SYOT CLOSED)
1. Chapter 1: Calculations

**Hello everyone, my name is Paradigm of Writing and welcome to my new Hunger Games SYOT, Vermillion Shorelines. It has been awhile since I have dabbled in the fandom for an SYOT and left many things bitter and turned out with a lack of progress, hence my dropped SYOT's Death Under the Sky and Fracture Between Two Hearts. However, I have decided to do something entirely different in changing up the formula... I am going to go** ** _super_** **far into the future rather than try an original pre Catching Fire Hunger Games, and make my own Quarter Quell... Quarter Quell of the 200th Hunger Games, the eighth Quarter Quell with quite the surprising twist that I won't reveal until we get to the arena. The amount of excitement currently stirring within me is going to cause me to explode one day, I swear. If you wish to create a tribute first, go to the bottom and then read the chapter. I will not accept any submissions by review, PM only, please. I am also going to write this in third person present, which I feel is where my writing shines the most, gives me the most room to write action sequences, and a few of my best WIP's were in this style as well. Please enjoy the first chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #1: Calculations.**

* * *

 ** _Head Gamemaker Ian Fletcher P.O.V_**

* * *

 _9 x 9 = 81. 8 x 8 = 64. 7 x 7 = 49. 6 x 6 = 36._

 _I am thirty-six years old. Why do I feel so old, then? Why do I feel as if there is unfinished business going on in my life. 9 x 9 = 90. Wait. No it doesn't. 9 x 9 = 81. 9 x 10, however, that equals 90. There we go. All is right with the world._

"I know you can hear me..." a voice whispers beyond the void, dark and vile, it claws outwards like sickled tree branches or witches' claws which desperately hope to grasp onto otherwise intangible forces. Hope. Love. Lust. Life. Creation. Death. _9 x 9 = 81._ Computation is a backwards thought, but it does not bother Ian Fletcher, it shall never both Ian Fletcher.

The Head Gamemaker curls up in on his side, one arm hugged close to his chest while the other sits underneath his skull, the sense of feeling receding and vanishing far too quickly for his liking. A hand placates itself on his shoulder, and Ian awakes with a feverish launch, sweat pouring down his mopped hair, darkening its naturally halcyon-like tint.

He recalls a few of the last number calculations in his head before looking at who decided to wake him up, rather rudely he might add. A solemn face stares back at his, but there's a gentle kindness to it as this mirrored complexion knows him better than anyone, despite all the complications and law breaking that there is going on between them.

"I'm up..." Ian breathes raggedly, noting the sudden lack of touch in his left arm. "I'm up."

"You alright?" His heart wants to fall apart at how gentle her voice is, and he curls up inside somewhat. Her delicate gaze passes over him and he's surrounded by warmth, a motherly love that only she can replicate.

Ian swallows heavily, his Adam's apple coarse against his pale throat, the lump of muscle and tissue groaning desperately for an escape, akin to a rock. "Fine. Just... thinking about numbers again."

His companion scoffs, and then walks over to the mirror and dresser in the right side corner of the room. He has never seen someone more beautiful. 186th Hunger Games winner March Larson of District 7 raises a bemused auburn eyebrow, her hollowed out cheekbones going to the carpet so he is unable to see whatever devastating effect he has on his wife.

"You realize what today is, don't you?" she asks.

Her victory replays over and over and over in Ian's mind. He's four years older than her, as March won when she was eighteen, to his twenty-two. Ian Fletcher is nothing more than a mere newbie to the Gamemaker circle, the last rung on the totem pole with a chipper complexion, bright eyes, and an ambitious pride that collapses entire civilizations. However, he's now fourteen years along this tract, and there's nothing left than the bare minimum. Nothing more than the essentials. Sometimes Ian wonders if he's even truly there anymore, but the type of job he runs can do that to a person. He's wholly human and wholly a monster. If only...

 _6 x 6 = 36._

March sits down on the bed, clutching his hand. Her win is messy, and still sometimes she sees her district partner's face reflecting in the mirror before she slits his throat with the blade of a gladius she receives days prior in a dirty skirmish with the Career male from District 2. " _It was him or me,"_ she tells herself over and over again, wishing for the pain to stop surmounting in her arm from an old stab wound. " _Had I not done it, he would have... and had he killed me, I would have never met Ian..._ "

She twiddles a lock of auburn hair around her left pointer finger, pulling part of her bottom lip underneath a stained row of teeth, almost so preciously coated in amber they look like a set of blood dripping blades. Ian notices that her expression is one of prompting, but he's thinking about calculations and everything is lost. "Hmm?"

March performs a one-eyed roll, which she's learned from years and years of practice. "You know what day it is?"

"August 19th," Ian smirks.

"Day before the Reapings."

The Head Gamemaker's smirk disappears back into the frowns of his pale face, and he throws off the covers. He's up at the dresser, pulling open drawers and suddenly panicking. _No... no, no... no... this isn't supposed to be here already. I thought I had another weak to prepare! Shit. Shit... dammit, this sucks! This really sucks. Okay, breathe! 9 x 9 = 81. 11 x 11 = 121. 1 x 1 = 1. 0 x 0 = 1. Zero divided by zero is nothing, as you cannot divide by zero and it causes the entire world to explode._

All March can do is sit and watch her husband fly through getting dressed as if he is some wired kid who has met the luxury of coffee. Ian Fletcher is off by two minutes and forty-three seconds, and with this setback, he is late for his meeting with the president where she unveils the Quarter Quell card to Ian and Ian only, and the two shall share this dirty little secret for a week before sharing it... as times have changed and the president wants this one unveiled so the tributes can let their destructive personalities do their dirty work for them.

Ian stops to busy himself with a tie, simple and a dark maroon... he thinks of nights where the covers are empty because March is throwing up in the toilet at the memories and what he sees is the dark maroon of failed pregnancies and the sad reflection lost in his wife's eyes. His own eyes pass over the mirror, which he is hoping to avoid, but as in any natural circumstance, it is the human's predestined nature to look at disaster headlong before it kills them.

The Head Gamemaker is thirty-six. _6 x 6 = 36._ _The fact is true. There's no experiment._ He stands at a rough 5'9, towering over colleagues with a shaky voice to counteract his somewhat mediocre height. His wave of lemonade hair is slicked down with sweat, strands clinging to his forehead like grappling hooks on the sides of canyon walls, where one misstep leads to death and more of the dark maroon that haunts his every single move. The hue of failure is evident in Ian's hazel eyes, where they are going through the memories of a stern talking to after the 199th Hunger Games. Some Career... maybe the girl from District 4 or the male from District 1 is supposed to be victorious, yet Ian creates an accidental fluke in the arena that the smart and surprisingly quick male from District 6 catches onto and causes an explosion in some other sector which sends the Career sky-high. The president is furious, the president demands there be reparations, and the president demands that Ian learns to desire perfection and not settlement. _Just because something looks perfect, does not mean it is. 8 x 8 = 64._

His moment to stare in the mirror gives him a few seconds to look at March, who is now getting up from the bed to help finish tying Ian's tie. March Larson, aged thirty-two. She's a mother of absolutely nothing but Ian's self-confidence, and wishes to never bear children despite claiming she wants children over bottles of wine and fancy Capitol pasta dinners. She's lost a good portion of the muscle earned in District 7 and stays primarily on the trains going from district to district, or out on a private beach which Ian has begged for many years ago. March's auburn hair is dulled in the shades of the closed blinds, her radiant diamond eyes flashing out similar to beacons in the night sky.

Ian absolutely loves her.

It is one of the reasons he shows up to work in the morning. March Heffner _is_ the reason he wakes up in the morning. He'd rather look at her than stare at a white ceiling for hours at a time. _6 x 6 = 36. 1 x 1 = 1. 5 x 5 = 25. 6 x 6 = 36._

And because Ian Fletcher loves March Heffner, he does not give her a kiss as he walks out of the door, now promptly four minutes and fifty-six seconds off schedule, and no matter how many computations he can muster or calculations Ian can whisk up in the blink of an eye, he is off kilter and now everything in the Games will suffer because of it.

 _6 x 6 = 36._

Let the 8th Quarter Quell, the 200th year of the Hunger Games...

 _Begin._

* * *

 **And this is where I leave you! This was the first chapter of the new SYOT, #1: Calculations of Vermillion Shorelines. Did anyone catch the hint about the arena in the description of either one of our two characters? If you did, you are very, _very_ keen. Alrighty, let's discuss the major components of this story.**

 **First thing is first. Tribute submission can only be done by PM's, no reviews of tribute submissions will be accepted for hassle and the time. This is a submit until the due date type of deal, so no first come, first serve. Submission is open from today, Sunday, May 21st, till Friday, June 17th. The story will then be updated after I decide my tribute cast list, and the reapings will begin. I plan to post the first reaping within a two week window from that date.**

 **Here is the criteria needed for your tribute.**

 **Name (First and Last)**

 **District**

 **Age**

 **Gender**

 **Appearance**

 **Family**

 **Personality (Be specific) (This includes likes and dislikes, sexuality preference if any, etc...)**

 **Weaknesses (Minimum of three; be specific)**

 **Strengths (** **(Minimum of three; be specific)**

 **Weapon of Choice**

 **Reaping Reaction if Reaped**

 **Would this tribute volunteer?**

 **Token**

 **Private Gamemaker Session**

 **Preferred Range of Tribute Score (1-4, 5-8, 9-12)**

 **Any Allies or Alliances?**

 **Preferable Placement?**

 **Cause of Death**

 **...**

 **If the tribute you submit is already being used in another SYOT, you may not resubmit that same tribute as that is unfair to the author of the other SYOT. If the SYOT you submitted to has been discontinued, that is a different story, and you can reuse the tribute. Everything and everyone else should be original.**

 **Now, when it comes to submitters, if I pick your tribute, reviews are generally appreciated during the twelve reapings, and especially at your district chapter. Come training and further into the story, your review is a heavy precedent in how the game will go for reasons I cannot explain or go into as of yet. If you are unable to ever get the time to review, which can be the case, PM me the circumstances and I will accommodate accordingly. Ones who make themselves prevalent and show interest in the story will, with probable reasoning have a higher preference to win, though sometimes a character with an author who does not review that is pure creative genius can rise to the top as well.**

 **The stats for submissions, broken down by district, is on my profile, the 2nd section of my profile. It is each district, number of male and female submissions. At the bottom, it is total submissions over all twelve districts. Also there is starting date for submissions, final date for submissions, and how many days till the deadlines. The criteria necessary for tribute creation will be underneath that in my profile as well in a separate section.**

 **Thank you all so much! I will be updating this story at a minimum of three more times until the reaping chapter to bump this story up in the archive for others to see it. If you know fellow readers on this site who wish to a part of this story, let them know and have them check this piece out. I know that this SYOT will be a blast.**

 **I love you all and see you on the flipside. May the odds be ever in your favor, ladies and gentlemen! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	2. Chapter 2: Disappointing Window Views

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with the 2nd chapter of my new SYOT, Vermillion Shorelines, #2: Disappointing Window Views. This is where we get to meet someone I'd say who is extremely important to the story, and will cause a lot of things to go awry, but I digress. I have about seven submissions at the time of writing this, and I hope that I can call more of you forth to create, as I am super stoked and hope to get this piece off the ground. I plan on writing two more of these... 'pre-list' chapters, if you will, and shall then wait till the deadline is over. WHICH, I actually pushed back by a week, as now the deadline is June 17th.**

 **New deadline for Vermillion Shorelines is now June 17th, and also you are allowed to create more than one tribute for submission if you'd like. The spots that get vied for most of all are the Careers, so if you want to get your jab first in those sections, go ahead! I'd also like to make a shout-out to a fellow submitter and a new SYOT writer, Peony Pierce, who is doing their own SYOT called Sweets to the Sweet, and they need submissions as well, so if you'd like to double your chances, go create something for that piece as well.**

 **Anyways, with that much digression and announcements, enjoy Chapter #2: Disappointing Window Views.**

* * *

 _ **President Jade Dermure P.O.V**_

* * *

Windows are overrated.

That is the very first thought that comes to the president's mind whilst she sits down in one of her leather bound office chairs overlooking the streets of the inner Capitol city circle in the primary sector. She looks outside this crystalline, frosted pane and sees either fly dung mat the edges of the outer rim, or sees some pathetic little weakling who has no conceptual idea as to what the emotion of fear even is, let alone have they ever encountered it.

Her gaze is sharp, and sometimes she likes to entertain her fancy by imagining her stare is one of magnifying proportions of a magnifying glass up to a snail. Jade Dermure does not joke around, no sir, and she is prepared to make sure everyone who dares insult her or question one tactic of her administration knows that. The president reels her mind back to the tangible feeling of fear.

Oh the spires of trouble it can elicit. She smirks somewhat evilly, _that_ she'll give herself credit for, thinking about last year when her personal favorite mutation ripped apart this girl's throat in last year's arena. The poor tribute - though personally, the tributes are not poor in Jade's eyes, they deserve their pain and punishment - is stuck in a closing hallway inside an high rise skyscraper somewhere over in an uncharted place of Panem, the mutation all scaly white and ferocious. Jade personally has no idea what she asked Ian, the Head Gamemaker, to even create, but then it looks like this half iguana, half homo-sapien dihybrid the moment it begins to walk, and she's stuck in this stasis of reverential awe and pure glee when the cannon fires and the mutation _still_ is mauling the female's throat.

Jade realizes hours later that the tribute who died is a Career, a girl who claims in her interview that she's deathly afraid of reptiles.

How... ironic.

How... fitting.

She can only conceptualize what had to have been running in that victim's head before her last moments. Pure, unadulterated fear. Pure terror, and Jade Dermure, president of Panem, loves every single digitalized second, down to the nanoseconds and cyberspace particles.

None of her citizens, not a single one, understands what it means to be horrified by their end staring them down in the face, before mauling you to bits.

Jade wishes, though it is a halfway met wish, that she places a Capitol child or even better, a Capitol adult in the arena come a week from tomorrow. Perhaps that'll show her denizens, her folk without brains and a sense of self, what true fright is and what shall happen to any instigators. She wishes to make example of them, and make example of them Jade Dermure shall.

A knock comes from the door leading into her office, and Jade swivels around from her spot. Standing in the doorway, feeble and skittish as ever is Head Gamemaker Ian Fletcher. Jade's flat lined mouth curls into a devious smile, and she motions her hands as an invitation. Ian's terrified of her, and Jade believes for a split second that there is someone in the Capitol who knows true pain and fright, as she's quite the scary little monster hiding under the bed and has the wiry and shattered man twisted around her finger, playing at every ploy she's ever constructed.

"You're late," Jade comments, dragging a filed nail in between a seam on her desk, which is entirely empty save a locket resting in a burnt bundle up on the right corner. She pierces through Ian, who is trying his very hardest to not look at the locket. He knows it's meaning, and yet every time a meeting like this happens between them, the Head Gamemaker falls to his corrupt and foolish mundane ways. "Why is that?"

Ian's face flushes, and she knows in his heart he wishes to be back in his room, hugging and being soothed by his traitorous whore of a wife, March. Jade despises the victor from District 7, but there's a certain reason why Jade leaves the woman alive in Ian's life... and it's an idea that even the president herself has not fully come to terms with despite that being her own idea in the first place.

"I slept through my alarm..." he whispers, eyes falling to the floor.

"March didn't have the sensibility to wake you?"

"She didn't want to wake me."

Jade coos low in her throat, almost like a purr, and Ian's face looses even more color than before, which is quite the feat in itself. "Aw, your wife does have a heart. I recall, though, that all those years ago, when she killed all those tributes in the arena, her kind heart vanished faster than one of her victims could cry out and beg for mercy," the president snaps, causing Ian to jolt. She rolls her eyes. She has a man who's afraid of his damn shadow as her most trustworthy companion and actual second most powerful person in Panem. "But, perhaps she's changed since then. I'd _love_ to see her again. It's been so long, and us ladies need to have days together, right?"

Ian pulls at the tie once more. "I... I'm sure that can be arranged."

She is tired of sitting and decides to go stand over by the right corner of her desk, hands near the burnt locket resting over the edge. Fingers splay outwards, and Ian witnesses the struggle on her face on whether or not she should use the locket to her advantage in this continuous and effective mental abuse of her Head Gamemaker. He swallows, trying to hide the fear most certainly plastered on his face. That's in his past, and he's moved on from that, he has most certainly moved on from that.

The president settles her gaze outside the windows. She scoffs. Man, Jade Dermure really dislikes windows; she holds so much vitriolic contempt for them and it's starting to bother her. There are very few idiosyncrasies in this world that bother her, and she is not about to relegate herself to hating an item that cannot even fight back. "You know what I don't like about windows?" Her question does not prompt an answer, which Ian is more than certainly capable of providing as the two of them have had this conversation multiple times in their career together.

"Why?" Ian sits up straighter, as Jade can smell his fear like a shark can smell blood, and her teeth are wickedly prepared for a taste of Head Gamemaker flesh.

Jade slides her pointer finger on her right hand through another desk seam, picking at the nail. She hears a snap and knows what that means, but it's all right. She'll find someone else to give her the manicure of a lifetime and throw the other in jail for even thinking the preposterous thought of not creating absolute perfection. Perfection exists, in Jade Dermure's mind, though it is not easy to find and it isn't meant to be.

"They obscure things." Her voice is full and bitter. "Windows add an extra layer of fakeness to the outside world, as if I'm seeing something through a lens that only shows me what I _want_ to see, not what I need to see."

The president gets a good look at her reflection in the window. Her hair is a soft, yet dark and suave wave of hazelnut, which happens to be her favorite delicacy. Two eyes sit in her skull, pulled back and sunken in, but it is what she, Jade Dermure, sees in the mirror. To anyone else, they're normal. Jade Dermure, _Jade Dermure,_ president on Panem, is no morphling. Her eyes are a fresh glade of newly cut grass, piercing and illuminating, cold and radiant, fearing and loving, powerful and weak, she's her own goddess in a gilded office in a presidential mansion. Jade's face only radiates a darkening scowl, and it is partially from the broken nail, Ian's incompetence, and so much more. She remembers her disposition when it used to be as hauntingly beautiful as the characters you hear in fairytales.

That is before the amber glow of a lamp, the basket of flowers, and a cracked piece of cobblestone clutched in weathered hands.

She blinks.

Jade blinks and her fantasy world vanishes, she's brought back to present and the longing in her heart to return is painful.

The president is restless and decides to sit back down in her chair. There's nothing else to pursue in the tangential thoughts of windows, reflections, lost memories, failed aspirations and more. She begins tapping a hand against the desk, Ian's own eyes following her every movements. He is covered in a cold sweat, given a sheen of light and slickness coating his arms. Jade wants to feel pity, she wants to care, but there's nothing. All because of the lamp, the basket, and the chipped cobblestone.

One of them clears their throat, though neither knows who did it.

Jade almost comically slaps her forehead. _How could I be so stupid? 6 x 6 = 36._ "I nearly forgot why I wanted you down here in the first place."

"And what is it?" Ian asks politely, yet there's an edge of nervousness to his voice, like a steely blade preparing to strike or flee at a moment's notice. "There's a lot of final preparations that need to take place before tomorrow, and I have to make sure all the escorts know the specific protocol they have to follow..." he goes into a list of criteria he has to ascertain before the blood sun sinks beneath the sky, and Jade is not listening, a dull, innocuous beat growing into a lion's roar.

"I want to make sure the tributes get each and every opportunity to mingle with one another. Parties, a show, large dinners... anything that lets them get to know each other..." Jade spills out, and even she's hesitant, biting her lip as Ian's eyebrows furrow together, not quite understanding the gist of what the president is going for.

"I'm not sure why you want us to do this, Jade..." Ian muses. "I mean, there's a reason the tributes do not interact with each other besides during training due to the violent events that have taken place in the past. What is this supposed to accomplish?"

"It'll make the Quell..." she grasps for the right word, "Twist, more effective."

Ian sits back, contemplating. He nods, rubbing his chin. "I can see why that'll work. It'll give them a chance to create more lasting relationships. Find out who they like, and who they don't like. You-"

"I want the Careers to not be the only ones hated," Jade elaborates. "Let's put it that way."

She swivels around in her chair, a smile beginning to stretch on her face. This means one thing, and Ian understands it is an unspoken dismissal. He is no longer needed, and he can go back to his day job of being a true, one-of-a-kind asshole. Jade Dermure picks up the pendant, when she feels the subtle change in pressure on the carpet. Ian Fletcher is out of her presence.

Jade holds it close to her chest and begins to laugh.

This Quarter Quell, this _Hunger Games_ year, will be extremely entertaining. She just knows this.

6 x 6 = 36.

Thirty-six hours.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Boom.

* * *

 **Well, there we are ladies and gentlemen! Another quick, filler chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #2: Disappointing Window Views. Here, is our introduction to my president, Jade Dermure, as I wanted to see how a power-hungry woman besides President Coin could be used, and I hope she's raising some eyebrows and turning some heads. A few things I wish to get out in the open as questions you all should think about. What do you think the significance of the locket is? (Ian and Jade both know what it was in the past, clearly) What is the usage of the number 36, with the multiplication time tabl = 36? Any possible idea as to what the Quarter Quell idea is that I have in store for you all? AND, did you catch another hint towards what our arena may possibly be like? I believe I hid it quite well, so keep your eyes peeled as there will be these references and hints sprinkled throughout.**

 **Once again, I please hope this encourages you to submit a tribute, or nonetheless several tributes if you've already submitted one and wish to see more of your characters written, as I want to give this more attention than any other Hunger Games story I've ever written before. And, friendly reminder, make sure to check out Peony Pierce's SYOT Sweets for Sweet and go submit to that one as well. I'll be writing my own character submission in a few days to send, and I hope y'all will do the same.**

 **Please review and let me know what you think is going to happen! There's more to come, and I am super excited. I am updating again with Chapter #3: Bottomless Vodka, on Thursday, so there's a little resting period to constantly bump the piece back up to the archive. Thank you so much for reading! I love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	3. Chapter 3: Bottomless Vodka

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #3: Bottomless Vodka. Even though I am not at drinking age, and do not actually see the usage of alcohol in shape or form, there are times when I'm like, "oh you're going to lead me to drink..." and fanfiction often does that to me hahaha. There still aren't that many tribute submissions in, I** ** _think_** **at the time of writing this I just capped into double digits, so good lord there are many spots available, and tributes to be had! I am having a blast though going about and designing the arena and my Quarter Quell twist, which eventually we'll learn, but it won't be until much later. We have another chapter with just Ian coming up, and another chapter with a character I don't think I have** ** _ever_** **seen a writer do a point of view from, so that'll be a lot of fun, I can already tell. Please, if you haven't, go and submit as I'd love to be able to write your creations and challenge myself with characters I've never seen before. Enjoy Chapter #3: Bottomless Vodka.**

* * *

 _ **March Larson: Victor of the 186th Hunger Games P.O.V**_

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good time to be drinking?" a voice asks from afar, over the shoulder of March Larson, victor of the 186th Hunger Games and wife to Head Gamemaker, Ian Fletcher. "It _is_ only noon, you realize. That's quite early."

March snorts into her drink, a clear cup full of rich, District 1 vodka, and takes a hearty swig. "Too early my ass," she sets the glass down with a satisfying gasp, the _chink_ of precious stone colliding with the table. "You're just worried that I won't be able to stand up straight when I return home tomorrow for the reaping..." Worry lines crease into her face, and she frowns. "I have to go take a near-almost seven hour train ride back to District 7 for perhaps not even two hours of my life, then take the seven hour train ride back here to the Capitol for the games. Stupid, _really_ stupid."

Her companion sits down at the table in front of her, eyes twinkling. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, my trip is about a third of that."

"Well that's because you're from District 1, you stupid jerk." March motions over at the waiter for him to give her another drink. She's going to need almost ten million of these glasses before she can sit through a Hunger Games completely sober. She isn't a drinker, not by a longshot. Luckily, Ian keeps her down to Earth.

The very same person she has insulted looks up at her underneath his cocky brow with a smile. Gendry Hutson, victor of the 170th Hunger Games, hailing from District 1, knows exactly how his best friend, that dear ole' March, ticks. He loves it. Gendry leans back in his chair, arms out and behind his head. "Hey, I can't control where I was born. Besides, I've been in the Capitol for so long, I'd much rather feel the carpeted floors of the train for two minutes than the bed sheets in my apartment room. They-"

"How long have you been here?"

"Since the Games last year ended." Gendry shrugs.

March nearly drops the glass of vodka in her hand, eyes wide and immediately a seed of sadness fills her. "A _year?_ " she does not bother keeping her voice down, loud and boisterous as always, which gives the victor pair a few pointed glares and stares from the surrounding patrons. Gendry flashes everyone an iconic, Career-like glare, and everyone goes back to their original, daily business. "What were you doing that required you to stay in this godawful place for so long?"

"Work." he keeps it short, but March insists. Gendry presses his lips together in a thin line, color receding from his face somewhat. March gets a look at him, and realizes he looks actually quite... well, for a lack of better words, bad. His top lip is cut slightly, and his normally luminescent and almost Capitol like, vivid blueberry shade of hair is much more subdued and darker than usual. Bags are under Gendry's eyes, yet March finds him to be completely attractive. The man is forty-three, yet looks like he got doused in bronzer and came out like a rip, roaring twenty-five year-old.

She twirls a lock of auburn hair around her finger. "Are you heading out early? My train doesn't leave till about seven."

"Why so late?" Gendry questions.

"I have someone to say goodbye to before I leave," March explains, although the mystery isn't needed. Gendry, personally doesn't care. For as long as he's known the vibrant and vicious victor, they can share or leave untold as many whispers and lies as they want. It shouldn't bother him anymore, not after what he's been through. "He's got a lot to deal with, and I don't want to add another tally on his board of things that upset him."

He knows who she's talking about, but for the sake of March herself, Gendry keeps quiet. Keeping quiet is what almost got him killed, but it is a different story and a different memory than what he wants to ponder on at the moment. March takes another swig of the vodka, hails the waiter down again for another, and takes that one as well. The liquid burns in her throat like a long lost kiss, or a hazily written suicide note with blood still splattered over the drooping ink blots. She reaches out to touch Gendry's hand when she accidentally knocks over her empty, luckily empty, glass of vodka.

It touches the ground with a deafening crash, shattered shards of crystalline glass shooting everywhere. Her eyes begin to twitch, and she's stuck remembering her district partner's throat, all mauled up and scissor cut as if the blade had done more than a simple slice. She immediately goes to apologize, as she's always doing stupid shit like this all the time, and it is kind of disappointing to be reminded of it constantly. March hates thinking about what she's already broken too many times in Ian's house, their bathroom. (Their hearts)

"I'm sorry..." March mutters.

"No, let me." Gendry insists, placing a gentle hand up that reminds her of cold, lustful nights long ago when she's nothing but a worried eighteen year-old on all the newfound responsibilities chucked her way. He is not thinking the same thing, but it is perfectly okay. As her friend leans to pick up the shards of glass, March catches a glimpse at Gendry's wrist, hidden away by a long-sleeved button down, which she finds peculiar as it is in the middle of August heat. The skin is scarred up, and she nearly loses her breakfast. Scraggly drawn lines, dyed a putrid crimson, are dotting his entire arm. Sinew lines are twisted in and plagued with warped fire, tissue in tiny, precious knots that should scream pain. However, Gendry seems to be unfazed by all of this suffering, which is oddly peculiar.

He places the glass bits on the table and looks back at March. "You alright?" Gendry asks, noting now that the other victor has completely gone pale, eyes shrunken in.

She shakes her head, swallowing something heavy and evident. "Yeah. I- I'm fine. Just thinking."

Gendry shakes off an unwanted tension, smiling. He places his elbows on the table, one hand against his chin with his thumb underneath. There's a burning desire in him to just say how he feels about her on one particular subject, but he wishes to still be friends, so this is not going to happen. A time and place for everything, he supposes. "What do you think the Quarter Quell twist is?"

March shrugs her shoulders haplessly, running over them in her head. 25th year, the districts voted for who they wished to send in. 50th year, twice as many tributes. 75th year, the infamous 3rd Quarter Quell of so many old victor deaths... 100th Hunger Games where a half of the tributes had their plates explode the moment the gong set off, and the other tributes remaining had no weapons in the arena but the environment around them. The 5th Quarter Quell generated the most excitement where only eligible siblings of important district officials fought, the victor that year being some puny twelve year-old girl from District 3, to then go on a killing spree when she turned fifteen, murdering her entire family before being gunned down by Peacekeepers. The 150th year actually felt plain and simple, there had been no Cornucopia, instead the weapons had been interspersed throughout the arena, which was volcanic and treacherous. Last Quarter Quell eliminated sponsorships, which proved to be disadvantageous as many died from starvation, infection, and other natural arena inflictions. Jade didn't appreciate that very much.

This year could be a game changer. "I have no idea. What do you think it is?"

"There's too many possibilities," Gendry frowns. "Y'know, every time that box is opened or mentioned, I wonder just how many cards and ideas are in there... like, what would happen when you run out of ideas? Just reuse them?"

"You'd think," March agrees, nodding. "I can think of a few tangents, but they lead to nowhere."

"Like what?"

A small smile quips at the corners of March's mouth, eyes twinkling. "That, maybe for one Quarter Quell, the twist is that there is no Hunger Games that year. Or maybe the best Gamemaker Private sessions actually get the lowest scores and visa versa."

Gendry makes a pained expression, clutching at his heart. "That'd be the worst! I scored an eleven, thank you very much, and I don't need someone knocking that score down."

March laughs. "That sounds much better than my measly six."

"You got out of there alive, at the very least," Gendry sours the entire conversation with _one_ sentence, and the happy thoughts cease to flow, March's expression clouded. "Everyone who scored higher than you died. Put that into perspective."

She looks down at her hands, partly ashamed, though she has no idea why. _It's all his fault! He messed you up, and there needs to be something done for that. Screw him, he's just jealous that I have retained my good looks._ March's skin feels dry, pulled back and scraped off as if she's in agonizing pain, boils and blisters lined up and bursting with feverish fervor. Her bones crack and break in the worst points, fingers constantly poised as if they're ready to strike, or that they're curled up around a blade that goes _swish-swish_ into a tribute's skin. The taste of lucid copper fills her mouth, and the presence is warm and necessary and needed. March Larson is no coward, but she's a coward at the thoughts of the Games. It's all Gendry's fault for even thinking of introducing that to her!

"Who was it?" she asks. The question seems harmless, but there is vengeful and malicious intent underneath, words tainted with a poisonous tint that slowly inserts the burning pain, like a hypothermic needle shooting drugs into a drug addict's system.

"Who was what?" Gendry reiterates, eyebrows furrowed together. So far, this does not sound like a fun exercise.

"Your first kill."

He looks taken aback by the inquiry, frowning. "Well, who was yours?" Gendry Hutson is not all keen and privy on spilling the beans with quite the touchy subject, but he shall play March's game and sees where it leads him.

She pales right back, biting down on her lip so hard that it draws blood. "Jacqueline Duntra, the female Career from District 1. Cleaved her in two with a machete stuck in a pillar. She didn't even see who or what killed her, as I got Jacqueline from behind," March looks away. "It was during the bloodbath," she added shamefully.

"Mark Adler..." Gendry lets out a lasting sigh, running a hand through his hair. "Surprisingly, I hadn't managed to get anyone during the bloodbath, as our Career alliance only killed two people... four of them had been blown up by some stupid makeshift bomb an idiot who didn't know what it was found in the horn. I had been out of the blast zone, and the only one left alive was the guy from District 4, who had speared two tributes in the back. Anyways, it's a few days later, the other Career had died from falling off a damn cliff in the dark. I'm getting some water by a nearby lake, and on my way back to camp, Mark comes running through the woods and collides into me."

"How'd you kill him?"

"Snapped his neck. Then, for good measure, I stabbed him so he would bleed out," he makes a face, the snapping sound as clear as day, when he was so young, _so_ young and vicious and violent at his youthful age to perform an atrocity against humanity, another human being. "I'm not proud of it. He was my only kill, believe it or not. I had been so young, I actually didn't have the strength to lift some huge sword. I won when the Gamemakers poured fire down on the arena, burning the forest and killing everyone else from the smoke."

"How old were you when you won?" March questions, now really missing that precious glass of vodka, its remnants shattered on the table.

"Thirteen," Gendry replies, reaching into his pocket. "Let me pay for the drink." He slaps a bill down on the table and shuffles off without a word, walking past her. March looks at the vacant space where her best friend had been sitting, and he pauses before he's completely out of earshot. "Mark Adler was the male that year from District 7. We were in the final eight, March."

Then Gendry Huston is gone, off into the bustling streets of the Capitol. March sits in her chair, speechless as his words ebb and flow over her and are registered brain deep. Gendry's only kill to escape the hellish arena is a person from _her_ district, and Gendry is _her_ best friend... March Larson wishes there was something in the world known to man as the bottomless glass of vodka.

She once again calls the waiter down and asks for another, suddenly missing Ian's warm hands around her waist or Gendry's smile, as she drinks the glass over and over. Her throat burns at the sharp and bitter taste of the alcohol, before placing her head down on the table.

March Larson begins to sob.

34 hours left.

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 **And there we have it folks! Chapter #3: Bottomless Vodka, of Vermillion Shorelines. I particularly enjoyed this chapter, as I haven't ever really focused on making true victor characters before unless they were OC's from a prequel or used as main characters in that same story... not just people drew up on a whim of air, like March and Gendry. (I also couldn't resist with naming him Gendry, as Game of Thrones Season 7 is almost here. Keep rowing Gendry! Keep rowing! You'll be relevant again one day!)**

 **Anyways, I am having he and March be the two victors in this story I focus on the most, as intertwining their points of view and backstories with the rest of the tributes, once we reach them, will be fun. What do you think of them? I know we've had March already introduced to us back in Chapter 1, but this is our first real look at them and boy, I hope they impress! Man, we're almost there till the end... and wow, I'm excited. I realize that I only have two chapters left between now and the deadline, so it looks like I'm going to have to start either spacing these out (just can't help it!) or push it up further should I feel like it, but the former will happen, so it'll more than likely be the former, as the latter is just me changing my mind ridiculously.**

 **Please go and submit if you haven't and let everyone else you know that would do the same! I'm hoping to have a full cast with only a few repeated submitters having to make more than one character, as the more authors given a chance, the better! Thank you so much for reading, and please review! I'd love to know your thoughts! Have an amazing day! I shall update with Chapter #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties in probably two weeks given how long I have to go till the deadline date, so just keep hanging in there. I love you all so much! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	4. Chapter 4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties. Just like I said I would, I update on the day I said I would about a week ago. The view count is going up actually really fast, so I wish to say thank you to anyone reading. I am starting to dissect all the tribute information that has been sent in (still haven't reached a total submission level yet), to create a few backstories, potential relationships, alliances, a few of the deaths (when, why, where etc...), and most importantly the arena! The arena this year is going to be something I don't think I've ever seen from an SYOT, and while that may be stretching at as there's a whole lot of these stories out there, this time I may be right as I am known in my 'mother' fandom to be quite unorthodox and go after topics that aren't necessarily on the map... but, once again, I digress. It's summer, I'm having a great vacation, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter, #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties.**

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 _ **Head Interviewer Silver Castle P.O.V**_

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Head Interviewer Silver Castle frowns at the wilting flower over by the windowsill overlooking his kitchen. The poor violet, despite getting a mother load of precious sunshine, droops over with amaranthine petals that barely lift off the pot's cracked surface. He waters it some more, leaning in. Silver's heard from a number of reliable, perfectly reliable, sources that talking with your plants and conversing with the green devils would encourage them to grow taller. He tilts his head to the left, eyes appraising the violet petals and the emerald stem. "Look... plant. I need you to grow. You're really being a problem, y'know. My water bill has been through the roof! I water you, hoping you'll grow, but then you just sit here and wilt. You're not getting my sympathy, plant. Besides... you should know me by this point. I hate bad investments..."

He thinks the plant has gotten the message, straightening himself and going over to the mirror by his bedside. A stunning pearly perfect white face - well to Silver he looked perfect, but to others, such as the president, he looked as good as a dog's shit on the sidewalk - stared back at him, a set of cropped hair so brilliantly cardinal it made others believe Silver's head is a pure ball of flowing blood. Hauntingly gorgeous sunburst orange eyes dance around his skull, various emotions recorded in their reflective stare. Hope. Lust. Irony. Death. Kindness. Fright. Love. Sympathy. Remorse. Dedication. Strength.

Always strength. Silver's always hated cowards. Even if he may be one himself.

There's a knock on the door, causing the Interviewer to jump. "It's open..." he calls, turning back to the mirror after recollecting his wits. Damn those who don't announce their entrances first. Silver loves the sound of a creaking door, it almost resembles that of his own adventures in his youth with the gray knives and the fire, but he doesn't often think about that.

Silver gives a side-eye to the other side of his apartment, and standing in the kitchen rather official with arms clasped over each other is Head Gamemaker, Ian Fletcher. The Interviewer raises an eyebrow, smiling conspicuously. "Ian!" he greets, his smile hurting his cheeks because it is too damn wide and so fake that Jade could smell the faux quality all the way over in her mansion. "Pleasure of you to stop by. Sadly, I was just about to leave. What can I help you with?"

If Silver's tone is anything to go by, Ian knows full and well the man could give a rat's ass about what one of his two technical bosses would want from him. Silver Castle is an idol in the Capitol with many suitors and others hoping just to get a rile out of him, so it means his schedule is busy when he's not filming specialized standard programming for all of Panem's sweethearts in the districts. He does not have the time, nor does he want to try and divide his time up for plebeians that do not deserve his love or attention.

"I like the tie," Ian comments. He winces as soon as he says this, because he knows exactly where this conversation will be heading, and he's avoided nearly every encounter with the insufferable man ending in disaster, because there's one unspoken rule concerning Silver Castle. If you like his appearance, he'll grasp you in his claws and never let go, it wouldn't matter if someone is kicking and screaming the entire way. "It brings out your hair."

The Interviewer nods, fiddling with the bowtie nestled at the crook of his neck, attached to the gaudy and all too bright halcyon tuxedo he's wearing. Silver finishes the knot on the crimson bowtie, which like Ian dumbly points out, _does_ match his hair like cotton and gin, yin and yang... and Silver is already exhausted thinking of world analogies to connect his hair with his dress. Analogies are overrated.

"Thank you," he replies smarmily, with enough warmth to sound as if he cares or didn't know this before. "I have another date. I want to make sure I impress him this time, or otherwise I'm out of luck on the dating scene..." Silver laments.

Ian raises an eyebrow. "He? What happened to that woman, the one who runs the salon by the train station?"

Silver grimaces at the thought of his last date. He sees her from across the bar, but the woman's back is turned and all he sees is that her figure is quite appealing. Though it is no known secret that the Interviewer likes sampling all across the dating spectrum from men to women alike, he generally sticks to what he's seen for most of his adult life: a fully grown woman needing someone, and that person is Silver. Everything goes sour in the man's head when he taps her on the shoulder, calling her simply stunning and then she _turns_ around with such ferocity anyone would've thought the lass had been a wild animal. Her face is a downright disaster, with lipstick curling up to her eyebrows, one eyebrow fully trimmed with precise precision, the other bushy like a rat's tail. Alcohol is spilled all down her front, and she smiles... a set of jagged glass teeth which nearly causes Silver to wretch all over the poor lady.

He gives her a few days to learn what style is, and it takes a good five minutes before he's stuck her with the check and bounded out to the rainy streets of the Capitol. Her laugh haunts him in his sleep, and it's been two weeks since he's gone out with the woman. " _Wherever she is, I hope she dies in a ditch, alone..._ " Silver growls to himself, and then aloud, "Yes, Ian. A man. His name is Gendry. Gendry Hutson. I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of him."

This is news to the Head Gamemaker. Although March talks to him about some of the victors, in where he feels their pain and tries connecting with them on a personal level yet falls short for always having a spoon of luxury stuffed into his mouth since he was a baby, Ian knows Gendry a lot more than he would someone else March has spoken about. He is jealous of Gendry's muscles and fair smile, while Ian almost soils his pants any time he tries mustering up the courage to kiss his wife. Ian has seen the bruises and the cuts that line up the victor from District 1's arms, but he knows if he talks to anyone besides March or another victor about it, the man will be thrown into a van and sent to the mentally insane hospital in its own secluded area of the Capitol.

"I didn't take Gendry to be a man who dates men." Ian rubs his arms innocuously.

"Oh, this is voluntary," Silver comments, fixing the bowtie. "I bought him."

"Bought?" the Head Gamemaker raises another eyebrow once more, shuddering.

The Interviewer turns to Ian and walks over, placing a hand on his shoulder. He shakes his head back and forth, making a _tsk-tsk_ sound with his tongue. "Oh, you horribly naïve individual. Why do you think Gendry has been here for an entire year since the games last year? You honestly believe that man is in love with the people and locale? He'd wish us dead if he had the power..." Silver admonishes, running a comb through his hair. "Jade forces him to sell himself for money. You mean to tell me that you haven't called on the victor services for a good time once in awhile?"

Ian shakes his head, biting down on his tongue and tasting the lucid bitterness of copper. "I'm faithful."

Silver rolls his eyes. "You're still married to that March girl? That District 7 whore? I thought you would've moved on by now..."

"Don't you dare call her that!" the Head Gamemaker growls, turning his hands into fists. "March is not some prostitute! She is my wife, and you will treat her like she is such or I'll-"

"You'll... what?" the other man mocks, moving his body in such a manner to piss Ian off. "You'll lecture me? I've heard fifty of your high and mighty speeches ever since I got this job. I'm too rude, I'm too brash... I'm too egotistical..." Silver's eyes flash, the expression taunting the timid and gentle man. "Or better yet, you'll tell Jade and she'll call you a coward!"

Ian begins to tremble, unsure whether or not he's scared or enraged, but his entire body is shaking like a Boeing 747. He decides to look just past Silver's face at a spot on the wall, evading the other man's gaze which is gleaming and triumphant. Silver shrugs, moving on past the Head Gamemaker, hand eclipsing the knob. Ian bites down on his lip. "Why?"

Silver pauses at the door. "Why... what?"

"Why are you so..." Ian struggles to think of a better word. "Mean?"

The Interviewer laughs to himself, a joyous noise with bubbling hilarity and genuine distaste. "Are you seven, Ian? I wouldn't call myself mean. Just an opportunist. In the Capitol, you have to be good at giving faux smiles and make sure you rock a bowtie. Whatever I say, if I have this look, it works off as snappy charm. Why do you think Jade hasn't snapped my neck? It's because I'm the only one in our Hunger Games trio that the citizens _actually_ adore. I'm good. I'm real good," he goes to open the door, and then stills for a moment. "I forgot. Since I was so 'mean' to you, what is it you came by to tell me?"

Ian smacks himself in the head, already wanting to move on from earlier and he bites his lip. "Jade wanted me to tell you that, come Interview Night, you have to ask each tribute their opinion on the others."

"And she couldn't tell me this to her face?"

"Our president is very busy."

"This also can't wait _till_ Interview Night?" Silver frowns.

"No," the Head Gamemaker ducks his head, face flushing. "It can't."

"Because...?" the Interviewer is sick and tired of Ian and Jade's games. It's as if the two have an unspoken code between them and they'll share whatever secrets they want, leaving Silver out of it. It could be what he gets for being an ass, the redhead muses to himself over nights filled with ginseng and taffy, but it's another droll story he wishes to tell his grandkids.

"The Quell." Ian answers, quite cryptically.

Silver nods. "Ah. Well, if you'll excuse me. I have a date to get to."

Ian watches the Head Interviewer leave, and he starts scratching at his arms. Every word, every single blistering word that the man said to him festers over his skin. Bullet ants filled with a venomous poison sting and claw at Ian's shoulders, and he downs to one knee, almost breaking into tears. He's sick and tired of having everyone constantly beat him down, getting stuck in a position he wishes he didn't have to be in.

On the other side of the door, Silver tosses back a white pill he had in his pant pocket, and steps into the elevator. The doors close with a _ding,_ and the golden gilded crate slides down the cold and stalwart shaft. The redhead taps his foot against the tiled floor, the elevator being empty. He wants, for perhaps what feels like eons before the side effects of the pill take effect.

Everything hits Silver in the face, all at once it is a wave of something he wishes to call nostalgia, but rather it is painful and scorching, driving over his skin like lesions of boils that burst and scald his skin. A wave of familiar, too familiar, blonde hair passes over a woman's shoulder as she steps out of the bar. The hook of her nose is too similar to that of someone Silver can no longer remember, and the Master of Panem's Ceremonies begins to shake feverishly, shaking strongly enough that he shakes the entire elevator. His sun tanned face goes white, and he's looking around as if there could be something to stop the side effects, but he knows that whatever is going on must take place beforehand, and if Silver Castle, the god that he is, wants to stop his own pleasure... well, then he's screwed in the head.

Silver, in a time that is not the present, watches the woman exit the bar and he gets up, bolting. Wind and words rush by his ears as he chases after the lady, caught in the throng of downtown Capitol traffic during the midday, and he's paralyzed in the middle of the street when the woman turns behind him. Pearls and stars flash by in his vision, downing the redhead to one knee. The sky is too bright, and the lines all blur and obscure together. A peal of laughter breaks the silence, it breaks the silence like a cresting wave till every resonate note of the joyous noise rivets around Silver's skull like a haywire bullet. Ricocheted bits of bone matter bounce and fly around, dancing in the breeze while the cacophony of chuckles drowns out all other sound.

The murmur of a heartbeat begins to take place of the other noises, ravaging and deadly. Silver's emotions gravitate towards something feasible as the woman begins looking around, as if she's searching for something but cannot find what she's seeking. He tries calling out, but the cries choke in his throat, until he's spitting up sulfuric acid and biting down on harsh words that aren't helpful in the slightest. His ears are roaring with blood flow, and the dizziness will not cease until Silver's skull is split open on the rock, festering around like ants that burrow into his nerves and wreck his endocrine system. The sky changes colors rapidly: a ferocious cardinal, a whimsical amaranthine, a decadent sapphire, a blinding halcyon, a turgid mahogany, a zealous sunburst orange, a flowing shade of carnation pink... the woman begins to blur together as if she's melting away into static, like a television screen's signal. He reaches out, and it's a fool's thought for someone to believe the commander could grasp onto the woman from yards away amidst a throng of people going about their daily levels. He's upset, Silver is enraged momentarily, that no one is noticing him, no one is giving a single care in the world about the man falling apart in the middle of the empty elevator. What did he do to deserve this? A stupid little night on the town with infamous victors is nothing compared to the sins of his leaders.

Silver whimpers, the pain is too great, the suffering has a mind of its own and it shall not stop until the redhead has reconciled with the past... he can never find the euphoria he wishes to receive if he lives in the ways of an old criminal... for what? For a woman's recognition? Certainly Silver Castle has far more better standards than that, yet he cannot seem to find any.

Blonde hair covers him akin to a field of grain, crumbly and tall where the woman's gaze pierces through him. Screams begin to disrupt the laughter and it's a precarious moment, a precious second in time that shatters into a million pieces. There's blood running down the streets now, running down Silver's hands as he's twisting, twisting someone's neck, shooting someone's brains out just to reach this mysterious woman who for some reason is nothing yet everything all at once. He cries out, he cries out hoping, _pleading_ that someone is to hear him, but he's met with silence.

Everything comes back to full, and Silver sways, collapsing into the side of the elevator. It lands on the ground floor with another soft ding, and he's woozy. He presses a hand to the left side of his face, grimacing intensely when he pulls his hand away to the formidable and grisly sight of his hand being drowned in a peal of scarlet.

Silver shakes his head, the moment passed.

In a world full of faux smiles and bow ties, no one is supposed to see you sweat.

The Head Interviewer pulls a handkerchief out of the other pocket and wipes away the blood, his face looking as perfect and gorgeous as it was before he left. Time to go meet his date, the insatiable and divine Gendry Huston.

Thirty hours left.

* * *

 **Alrighty! There we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #4: Faux Smiles and Bow Ties of Vermillion Shorelines. Wow... there we have our Head Interviewer, our Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Silver Castle. Any idea what famous video game character I partially based him off of, given his attitude? But yep, here he is, a man who thinks he's the hot shit when he obviously may be lacking in a few places. He thinks he's great because he's good at smiling with fakery and wearing a bowtie. I've written weirder. And he also has a mouth to him that may get him in trouble, no? Again, did you get the arena hint I placed this chapter, as well as starting to possibly pick up on the Quell twist? (It is kind of out there, but again I digress). What is your opinion on Silver's character, and especially his relationship regarding Ian? It's to be an interesting dynamic, I tell you for sure. AND, because I love questions, what do you all think took place with Silver taking the pill in the elevator?**

 **Next week, on Friday or Saturday, is the end of the deadline. I need tributes! Currently these spots are currently vacant and need at least one submission, which once again all the stats are on my profile if you need to be up to date with them. I need a District 1 Male, District 3 Female, District 4 Male, District 5 Female, District 6 Female, District 7 Male, District 8 Female, District 11 Female, and a District 12 Male. That is 9 tributes, meaning only 13 have spots that are have at least one, so go and create some tributes! However, if you've already submitted two, please do not make anymore.**

 **The next time I update will be on Saturday, June 17th, which will be a full chapter and the tribute list, which I will then post on my profile. From there will be one of the twelve reapings, but more to come on that when the time comes. Thank you so much for reading, and make sure to review! Your opinions are really going to matter. I hope to see you all again for Chapter #5: Empty Hearths and Empty Hearts. Have a great day! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	5. Chapter 5: Empty Hearths and Hearts

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #5: Empty Hearths and Hearts! Which means... you guessed it... a tribute list! *pops open champagne bottle* (Actually not really, I'm not old enough to drink... I'm about to be a senior in high school so missed opportunity there) Now, before any of you go scrolling to the bottom to immediately see who is who, don't! I'd love if you read the chapter first, absorbed all that you're about to hear, and then had everything come full circle with the list and other criteria that I have to let you all know, because there's a lot to go over! Alrighty! Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

The air is thick and heavy, the smells of dry maple syrup and heavy machinery drowning out March's senses. She coughs, lugging a suitcase up the rickety, wooden steps into her Victor's Village home. March, even though it has been only a few hours since she left her husband, misses Ian's hands, the words against the nape of his neck. He's alone in that godawful place with Jade Dermure, wicked president extraordinaire, and Silver Castle, the interviewer of dicks and assholes as his only company who'd surely rip the man apart to shreds. Her auburn hair blows back in the wind, and she smiles at the cawing of ravens which she can barely see over the treetop line.

March struggles inside, rolling her suitcase past the carpeted living room, and smirking a hello at the pudgy little cat sitting over in the corner, which she's named the one and only, Mr. Whiskers. Yes, she knows exactly how unoriginal that is, but in her day and age when trying to keep tributes alive and the nasty business of not having mental breakdowns every five minutes, her cat's name being something of glorious sanctum and sparks of genius is not high on her to-do-list.

She throws the keys that were twirling around on her finger over her shoulder, not really caring where they land. March flicks on a light and the living room is drowned out in a halcyon brightness that causes her to wince and flinch, covering her vision momentarily. She took the entire train ride home sleeping, as she never likes being awake on the godforsaken thing... it is nothing more than a mere reminder to her of what's gone on in her past lives.

There's a registered presence behind her, March knows this by feeling the subtle shift in weight on the carpet, and the fact her cat isn't making all sorts of noises, which he does anytime she's home... so someone is disturbing the peace. The victor wants to turn around kind of childishly, with a hand over her eyes, but if her strange intruder is an actual villain of sorts... or worse, the president, she needs to be aimed to kill.

March bites down on her lip so hard that she draws blood, and then goes for it. She twirls around, and although she is expecting someone to be back around her, she still jumps up in the air, letting out a shrill shriek. A man is sitting over in the far corner of the living room in one of her rocking chairs, a bottle of beer sitting in his hands, and he chuckles, downing a sip.

She takes a moment to regain her breathing again, looking away from the man for a few seconds before turning back to him with a face twisted in rage. "What the fuck? Dude!"

The man simply laughs. "Hello to you too. How did the Capitol treat you?"

"How do you think?" March retorts.

Her intruder, fellow victor Tuscon Jassery of District 7, victor of the 175th Hunger Games, the 7th Quarter Quell to be exact, gives a smile full of teeth and a curled eyebrow for all he's worth. He downs another sip of his beer. "Not well I take it. How's Ian?"

"Fine. He's doing great," she snaps back. "What are you doing here?"

Tuscon, a burly man of forty, who won his Quarter Quell at fifteen, with electric blonde hair, shrugs. "With how much vodka you consume, I'm surprised you even know who I am, March. You ask me every time you leave for the Capitol to watch your cat. So, for the past two hours I've been doing that."

"Two hours?" March raises an eyebrow. "How long each day have you been checking on him?"

He takes a second or two to register her question before frowning, hand going to his chin so Tuscon can think. "I checked in on Mr. Whiskers three times a week at least... one in the morning and one in the evening. He seemed alright to me."

She rubs her face with her hand, so hard in fact she thinks there'll be a great and violent red smear come morning and that'll be glorious to have shown all over Panem. March can see the headlines now in the Capitol, on the wretched TV shows that parade problems around like they simply grow on trees and can be chopped down. _Victor from District 7, incorrigible March Larson, has been hit by a frying pan to leave devastating mark!_ The thought causes March to snort, and then she mulls over what Tuscon had told her. "Wait... only three days a week? Who checked after my cat on the other days?"

Another hapless shrug is her answer. "I have no idea March. You know I'm not particularly fond of cats after my games..." Tuscon shudders. Too many black memories of a cat-like mutation chasing him around the arena, where he nearly loses half an arm and all of his sanity to the clawed beast where he found its skin dissolved in salt water. "Besides, Berryn loves cats! Why don't you ever ask him to help you?"

March wrinkles her nose in disgust. "Berryn is a seventy year-old man who is a total pervert. He'd probably come in and smell all of my underwear if I let him inside."

"He probably does that anyways."

"Excuse me?"

Tuscon flashes another small quipped grin. "All us victors in District 7 have a set of keys for everyone's house here in the village. So, I can go get into his house if I wanted too, or Nathan's, but I choose not to unless I'm invited."

March sets her jaw, looking dead on to the wall, fire burning in her veins. "That son of a bitch..." she hisses, and then she looks at the other victor's clenched hand. "I see you took a liberty of getting a drink before you could ask. How many is that?"

"In a day?"

"Of mine total."

"The ninth." Tuscon curls his lip up into a cruel smile.

March drops her jaw. "I bought that in a twelve-pack before I left! I've only been gone for two weeks! No more, Tuscon. I find out you keep stealing my drinks, I'm gonna chop off your manhood and feed it to Mr. Whiskers."

For the hell of it, and ignoring Tuscon's half pained cries, she marches into the kitchen and snags a beer out of the refrigerator. Only two more sit inside the dinky surface and she scowls. She hates when people take her out of this world kindness and build it to only their benefit, and it sickens her to the core. March walks back into the living room, taking the last spot not occupied by a bag, cat, or another disgusting victor like herself. She takes a long sip, satisfying and chilled to the bone. Her mind wanders back to the conversation she had with Gendry. She blanches somewhat again at seeing the scars, seeing the crimson lined cuts, how her best friend's face darkened at the mentioning of work... it hurts her to think about these sort of things.

She wants to rip her mind away from that moment and instead try and focus on the very beginning of her day, where she lay in her husband's bed and made him feel worthwhile. March knows that everyone who is anyone in Panem, from the president to the lowest victor on the totem pole, who'd be the 199th Hunger Games victor, knows about her and Ian's relationship. No one has ever been involved with a Gamemaker, let alone the _Head Gamemaker,_ like that before and she's sick to her stomach that perhaps the reason she gets so much misfortune is that she's in love with him.

It is almost like March feels that people treat her as if she is put into Ian's back pocket, his weakness is just a ruse and just an act trying to gain sympathies because his job is stressful. " _Would you like to have it?" March tells a dissenter towards her husband. "You spend several years designing death traps to murder teenagers and tell me how you like it._ " He had been only her age when she won, and she remembers like it was yesterday, on her victory tour to the Capitol, a wiry and quite sickly looking teenage boy comes running up to her and calls her the most beautiful creature he has ever seen in his life. She's blushing heavily against the side of the building, lips intertwined with his, a hand sneaking up the small of her back, and down her hand lowers until they both realize that for some reason they are made for one another. She does not see him for years and years, until that faithful 'I do', which rocks her world, which rocks her husband's world.

The pale face is familiar, as March has seen too many of them. The stupid District 6 boy, she remembers him. March feels the tears threaten to spill over her cheeks while recollecting these memories, but there's no reason she needs to stop. Kyle, she thinks, had been his name. The boy had been no older than thirteen, and she witnessed a Career plunge a wooden four by four straight into his neck, so bad that it pierced through the other side. She's never met him, she has no idea who he is, yet she's with him all the same while he dies.

Kyle paints a bloodied star, apparently his favorite shape, against her cheek, and there's too much scarlet coating her hands. There's too much blood and she is unable to tell if it's all his or maybe some of hers and his eyes are getting brighter and brighter, a pale face becoming also corpse light pale. He passes, she hears the cannon sound echoing around showers and dining halls, and March is sobbing over his dead body despite the fact she has spent no more than five minutes with this kid total in her entire life. She then begins to feel rage that a Career did this, they _always_ do this and kill those who feel as if they're perfect and ripe for the picking. Her rage directs itself onto her because she then realizes that she herself, she March Larson, is foolish that she could save this boy, save this thirteen year-old child from a fate worse than death by removing the wooden shaft and hoping his skin snips back together again. She's stupid, she's such a stupid little girl who had stupid little dreams that were so stupid she goes and marries a Head Gamemaker and nearly has sex with him on the night they met, as it is a stupid idea, and March Larson is stupid... so stupi-

"March!" Tuscon calls out, scrambling from his seat.

She breaks from her stupor, the dream and proclaimed self hate receding into her veins with an all too familiarity, and she barely registers the blood pouring down her enclosed fist which is holding the shattered beer bottle. Shards of glass stick to her knuckles and palm, and chilling air stings around the sinew cut, blood festering and fizzling, heart open and bleeding... March begins to cry again, and for the second time in one day she's done with everything.

Gendry's snood remarks, Ian's depression, her insanity... everything boils up to where there's no light inside her heart anymore, an empty hearth of nothing but dulled flames and frozen tears, she has an empty hearth and an empty heart.

Tick.

Tock.

Boom.

Fourteen hours remain till the vermillion shorelines bleed once more.

* * *

 _Tribute List for Vermillion Shorelines_

 _Male - Female_

 **District 1:** Kyden Winters and Zarita Armelle

 **District 2:** Minos Falzon and Pomona Blair

 **District 3:** Christopher Ordin and Dialan Seiko

 **District 4:** Criston Epidorus and Azora Seasnow

 **District 5:** Vito Moran and Lucinde Davenwright

 **District 6:** Tyrel Arke and Annabellina Circuit

 **District 7:** Linden Hazel and Astraea Sharpe

 **District 8:** Roman Bercucci and Ava Parrish

 **District 9:** Milner Dempsey and Cassiopeia Barley

 **District 10:** Alejandro Vega and Bandit Hyland

 **District 11:** Aaron Rovelle and Jem Lockehardt

 **District 12:** Joshua Minthel and Amber Proctor

* * *

 **And there we are folks! That is our tribute list, ladies and gentlemen! There will be a few things to go over, when it comes to the reapings and other stuff. Foremost, I left the tributes submitters anonymous for one reason only and that will be dedicated to our Quell twist (which I am surprised none of you have come by yet), and if you're so desperate to find out, check the reviews for this chapter about who submitted who if you like. It is going by male name and then female name. A lot of you guys love people with names beginning with A... seven tributes have that as their first name. Lol. I digress.**

 **So, for reaping chapters, I do things a little bit differently. Most SYOT's have their reapings go in numerical order, District 1 to 12, and I find that to be extremely droll. That means those who submit for lower districts have to constantly wait for their tribute to be written about which isn't fair, so what I do is I go on the RNG, which is Random Number Generator and generate a number between 1 and 12 for which district I'll write said reaping for, as it makes the chances of someone seeing a later district go up exponentially. I generated before I wrote the chapter, and we'll be seeing District 9 first as the very first reaping chapter, which is purely unorthodox, I know.**

 **For reaping chapters, it is heavily prevalent you review as it comes into something a lot later with the Quell twist. Though I know people do this in their reviews at times, it'll be nice and easy for me to keep track if you, as a reviewer and reader who has a tribute up, would say who you love, like, neutrally feel about, dislike, and hate... for reasons unknown. Come the training chapters after chariot rides, I expect and need reviews as it'll help the story and myself immensely (more on that for really when the time comes)**

 **I will start typing reaping chapters soon, and I will be starting with District 9, which I think will have the chapter out by no later than Saturday the 24th. Thank you all so much for submitting, I had 28 or so submissions, meaning four tributes had been axed from the final cut and I'm sorry, every character was well thought out and I am super excited for this year and this story! It means much more than any of you know.**

 **Hope to see you all with Chapter #6: Breadbasket Full of Nothing, no later than the 24th. Thanks for being amazing readers and reviewers! I love you all! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	6. Chapter 6: Breadbasket Full of Nothing

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, Chapter #6: Breadbasket Full of Nothing. Welcome everyone to the reapings! *jazz hands* Yes, ladies and gents we are the reaping stage of Vermillion Shorelines, where you met six of my OC's that will have P.O.V's in the story alongside our tributes. I plan on giving each tribute at least two P.O.V's before the games, and I'll try my definite hardest to stay true to that. I do my reapings in a random order instead of going in numerical order, so we are, due to RNG, starting at District 9. We get to see our first two tributes of the Hunger Games, a Mr. Milner Dempsey and a Miss Cassiopeia Barley. I generally alternate who gets the leading P.O.V, so male first then female and for the next reaping it'll be female first and male second. I generally try my hardest to make each reaping chapter as original and 'good' as possible without making it boring as I have twelve of these to write and twelve you all have to slough through... so yeah, it's hard. I also make sure not to give** ** _too_** **much info away from your character and will even write them in ways that may be different from what the submitter intended, because I cannot always see what's going on in y'alls heads. Thanks for being patient with the wait, as I'm three days late to getting the chapter out, but nonetheless we'll get there. My reaping chapters sit somewhere between 4k-6k, so they will be quite long and game chapters end up around the same 5k medium if not longer. Enjoy Chapter #6: Breadbasket Full of Nothing, the first reaping.**

* * *

 **Milner Dempsey: District 9 Male P.O.V (15)**

* * *

Warmness spreads over the boy's hand as he runs his fingers through the waves and waves of grain piled up in the field by his house. Fifteen year-old Milner Dempsey walks through the plethora of honey wheat, barley, oat, and rye plants which reach up to his nose and tickle the pale skin. He sneezes for the thirteenth time that morning, neck sore from the constant reeling back and thrust forward, but he's used to it by now with so much pollen in the air. Milner gasps for a breath amongst the flies, one buzzing too closely to his ear as he squirms uncontrollably, cringing his shoulder to his neck.

Not even the sun is bright enough to lighten his dull brown eyes, a brown that resembles the dirt packed between the stalks of grain, where adorning his head is a mop of dirty blonde hair, halcyon streams cut through by a hue of mahogany, like burnt garlic bread with salt crumbles on them. However, from a distance, one can see that his face is freckled, a mild version of chicken pox that allows Milner to get to his knees and pray to whatever god above that he's happy there's no acne blossoming in sweaty pockets all over his pores.

Milner knows - the thought rests in the back of his head like a disease, sneaking through eye sockets and clambering around an empty skull - that his parents will be looking for him, standing on the porch with the all too familiar grim look in their eyes that spells certain doom, a doom he's been spared from for quite some time. There they'll be, holding up a sky blue button down dress shirt that he's to run back inside the house to change into. By the bedside will be a pair of his father's loafers, shoes that do not fit his feet as he and his father have quite the body difference, but it no longer bothers Milner like it used to. Now, he's happy to slide his feet into them and parade the dusty things as a pair of clown shoes. They're only used for this special occasion.

Problem is, the occasion is not that all special.

He can see them, his parents actually, from across the rows of bread stalks. His mother has a look in her eyes that Milner is unable to pinpoint, but it is fierce and ferocious, the bearing curse of the Capitol ever so slightly putting the districts in a chokehold making her stare the evermore terrifying. Milner tosses his glance over to his father and for a split second he feels like he's seeing himself.

Blackened eyes that never smile, hair murky and messy as a sunlit plain covered in a restless fog, freckles dotting over glistening cheekbones and cracked lips. Milner's father is lucky - or at least that's what Milner himself hears his father tell the district -he has someone in his spitting image parading all around the district. The boy snorts at night at the thought. How can he possibly 'parade' around the district? He never goes far. Milner does not cross over to the other side beyond the town square and out of sight of the train station's tall bell tower that gleams in the distance.

He does not, he thinks aloud to himself when the rational thought is there, that he is unlike his father in every way other than looks. His father is strong, Milner can hardly lift a bay of hay in its smallest packaging, a weight no heavier than ten pounds, without struggling. His father bleeds, sweats, and cries the toil of a hard working day, Milner hates the working lifestyle and prefers running from the load into the field where he can blend in and never be caught. His father thinks through things, Milner despises rational thought. He feels like there's a contradiction. How can one person decide what is logically sound and what isn't? Only people who think they're privileged, Milner whispers into the bed sheets one cold and wet December evening.

Now it is the middle of August and the heat is sweltering above the hazy line of sight, the winds bitter and stark, there's no warmth in them despite the air being humid and muggy. Milner does not like the summer months as they transition into fall. It causes the television signal to go out, and he has no idea what he's to do when he's not being coerced into work or watching the screens. Milner understands at times, though the actual acknowledgment is only skin deep, it never fully hits his brain, that watching the Hunger Games is a fascinatingly horrifying obsession.

Milner blames his mother. He always blames his mother.

He likes to forget her name, which is perfectly okay, as she's even more Games obsessed than he is. Milner thinks of a word when his mother comes to mind, and that perfectly sculpted word is gambling. After the terror of the reaping has passed, and Milner is safely back at home with an empty fireplace and a full plate of food, his mother will turn on the television and watch away as the reapings take place. Careers with muscles the size of Milner's entire lower body take the stage and bellow into the microphone. Weak twelve year-olds with colds who sniffle and hiccup for their mommies are slaughtered from a moment's eye. And yet his mother is the first to point the finger and either declare them a victor or a winner.

She's gotten every year she's guessed correct, as far as Milner can recall back. All the way to the 173rd Hunger Games, twenty-seven years ago, if he does the math correctly. When he's a year old, Milner's mother has picked March Larson to become the victor of the 186th Hunger Games, and sure as shit the auburn haired girl wins and his mother has collected a sum that she is unable to hold in her pockets. When Milner turns twelve, his mother grabs him by the shoulder and places him in the living room. He watches, with a horror that is somehow a mix between stupefaction and total terror, the 197th year take place and the tributes are ripped apart by ravenous dogs that hunt in packs, or the foolish Career who accidentally triggers a trap that gets a Gamemaker spawned earthquake to crumble an entire ruined city, leaving the Career alive out of sheer luck. Yet, once again, the Dempsey family gets a large sum of cash in their pockets the next day, and he loves that his mother has the gift.

But, he notes something, Milner does, at dinner when their conversations turn sour. "Mother," he asks one evening, age thirteen, "If I'm ever picked for the Hunger Games, will you bet on me? Won't I win if you do?"

His mother smiles back wryly, fork stuck in her hand as if she's prepared to stab her own son with in the heart. "Yes, Milner. Of course I would." Only his father senses the venom and the lying that slips through her teeth, and Milner's still sitting in the District 9 fields like an idiot believing his mother would bet on his own life.

That's something Milner cannot do. He's unable to pinpoint what a lie is, everything sounds truthful and spoken out of the mouth of babes. He learns the skill from his uncle when he's young, around seven or so. His uncle, as he'd hear the escorts from the Capitol say on the television screen at home, that his uncle is some Leonardo Da Vinci of sculptures, though Milner has no conceptual thought as to who Leonardo Da Vinci even is. His uncle takes the compliment - apparently it's a compliment, Milner japes to a friend of his at school - nicely, and then with renown fame and wealth never speaks to Milner or his family again. His mother sniffs in the air disdainfully any time the loathsome rat's name is dare mentioned at the table or anywhere in her presence for that matter, as her brother turned her son into a boy who always tells the truth. That'll kill him, she knows it deep down.

Milner likes it when he's with his parents around the district, begging to only stay in the section that feels like home, which they oblige. His father's hands are scuffled up and clamp down on his son's shoulders like iron restraints from the hours in the field. Milner observes from a distance, as he finds his father's ideas to be stupid and illogical, the workers petitioning for a holiday, a national holiday for Panem in District 9 that the day after harvest should be taken off. Apparently, over in District 6, President Dermure gives the workers in the transportation industry a day off for those who worked on building the trains used to traverse between the districts. Milner wonders why his father is so connected to District 6, passionately thinking mind and body like those who toil on iron machines of industry and capitalism. Perhaps it is the oil slicks across the workers' heads and stained jackets, or the blistered fingers from hot metals and days out in the son. Regardless, Milner thinks it'll bring death to his father. Jade is to arrive on a scented cloud of black and viciousness, put a bullet in the man's skull, and fly away, cackling.

He doesn't like thinking of it.

The heat out in the field is unbearable, Milner starting to sweat quite heavily, beads trickling down his forehead and into his eyes which sting and burn. He races out of the field and back over to the house, panting. His thin frame is covered in a coat of shimmering perspiration, shirt ruined. His mother hands him the article of clothing, he bids a quiet thank you, and races inside.

The fifteen year-old, though the action is seldom, fancies the thought of killing someone. It isn't there all the time, and Milner does not view himself as an insane psychopath like the wickedly evil District 12 male tribute a few years ago who had sex with all of his victims, which ensnared a few male Careers and even the tribute's own district partner. However, Milner gives it a quick thought. Place a dagger in his hand and he'll try his hardest to inflict a wound. Nothing major - the boy isn't very adept to the sight of blood, and he's okay with that. Not everyone is born into Panem with the feeling of withstanding such a grotesque sight, and not everyone leaves Panem able to still hold in their lunch at the very glimpse of it either.

Milner steps down into the bath drawn for him, a elongated and iron wrought tub. He stares down into the reflection of the water, a brown ceiling etched in pencil above, cloudy eyes staring back at him with sadness dripping off eyelashes into the lukewarm water below. He's freezing, even though the windows are all open. His mother and father are talking in hushed whispers at the door, and it's the same banter that it has been for the past three times Milner's been offered up to the gods of Panem at the behest of an escort who cannot tell their left foot from their right.

He closes his eyes and sinks beneath the rippling pool, the smell of copper lucidly flowing through his brain. Milner regrets opening his eyes, corneas stinging and irises burning. He resurfaces, gasping with a loud breath as the water droplets trickle and go _split splat_ off of his arms into the tub. He grabs a soap bar by the side and begins to scrub, quickly, and speedily. So fast, he feels his skin burn underneath his arm, blistering and erupting with hot fire as he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs. The old is to be washed anew, he thinks doggedly, as the torturous pain lets a hiss leech from his lips, lingering around like curdled milk.

The buzz of the all present fly passes by an ear, and Milner raises an arm out of the tub to smack it, instead missing and whacking himself in the ear. The pain is not worth it in the end, as he catches the lobe and part of his neck with a resounding slap. It echoes around the wooden house, and he's biting down on his lip, a low draw of breath passing in and out as he submerges. The water dulls the pain, the soap leaves his body, and now the water is a pearly pink mist he can no longer see through, blurring and blinding, Milner shakes his head like a dog, the surface of the water breaking as his knees pass the threshold from moist to dry.

It is time for reckoning. The phrase rests on Milner's lips and the chills of the bath return, the stinging of his slap dissipate from his neck, and the fear once again resonates.

* * *

 **Cassiopeia Barley: District 9 Female P.O.V (14)**

* * *

Cassiopeia Barley does not hate that much in her life, that much is certain, but the one thing that rises to the top of the list and beats her down constantly is the smug look of her sister as the two stare each other down at the breakfast table. Her sister, Dahlia, with ferocious amber eyes and hair as black as the spooky night, leans in, hands stuck to one end of the piece of toast that is also firmly gripped in Cassiopeia's.

"Give it to me! I saw it first!" Dahlia argues, pulling on the remaining piece of either's breakfast.

"As if!" the other girl's face mirrors that of disbelief. "You've already had two! I haven't had one yet!"

"Well that's because I have my first reaping today! I have to keep my strength up!"

"And I'm on my third year! How do you think I feel?" Cassiopeia snaps back.

The two girls both give a vicious tug on the piece of toast which then falls out of both of their grasps and collapses to the floor, crumbs going with it, neither Barley sister getting a single sliver. Dahlia whips her head back up, face twisted in a scowl. "Look what you've done! Now neither of us have anything to eat!"

"This isn't my fault! Only if you were to share like a normal person!"

"You're so stupid..." Dahlia mutters underneath her breath, and she spins off her chair and storms into her room from across the kitchen in the house.

Cassiopeia watches her sister go, and at age fourteen, she wonders why the world must be so cruel to her. As if. " _The worst I have to deal with is getting reaped once every year, and the occasional argument with my sister,"_ the girl ponders optimistically. " _That probably pales in comparison to what actually happens with the tributes who get picked. Least I'm not one of them."_

She hesitates between reaching down and picking up the piece of toast or to leave it there for someone else to pick it up and then berate the sisters for recklessness and fighting at the breakfast table. Err... breakfast counter moreso. Cassiopeia sighs, giving the decision a two minute thought, reaching down and exerting herself far more than she's used to. On the surface, anyone who knows her can tell dead straight to a Peacekeeper's face that Cassiopeia Barley is lazy, through and through. She's used to an hour in the fields, tops, as the heat gets to her and she's done for the day. Cassiopeia is used to Nile Dempsey's disappointed gaze as she stifles through the wheat and grains. All she knows about Nile Dempsey, her boss, is that he's fathering some wench who she'll probably dislike if ever given the misfortune to meet.

Cassiopeia picks up the toast and cringes at the crumbs all around the floor. She probably will have to sweep those up, or it'll be once again another fight with Dahlia on that chore, and neither would like their parents to assign them a role. Her semi-curly chestnut hair bobs against her neck as she throws the piece of toast in the trash, swiping it with her hands. She looks at the clock resting against the counter in the kitchen. It's about twenty minutes from noon, and she knows soon it'll be time to face the starkness of the town square, look into the absurdist eyes of the escort who she hates even knowing for a split second, wait with bated breath at the drawing, and then sigh in contentment that she's given another year of distant happiness only to be wrought right back around for selection again.

The girl opens the door to her house and settles down on the porch. She gets a few minutes - though it really feels like seconds in her mind, time passes by too quickly - to herself when the door is flung back open and dark haired Dahlia Barley is sitting next to her, and of all the people Cassiopeia can name as good company, her sister never gets put on the list.

Dahlia has her hair up, and she turns her back to her sister. "Please?" she asks, and Cassiopeia smiles. The edge in her sister's voice has vanished from before, in just a few slighted seconds, and she happily goes to braid it. The Barley sisters sit in a muted silence, and Dahlia peaks the question. "What's it feel like?"

"What's what feel like?" Cassiopeia repeats the question, frowning, while her hands skillfully work at the braid.

"How do you feel when you're stuck standing there, waiting for the reaping to take place?" Dahlia elaborates.

Cassiopeia chews on the inside of her left cheek, pondering at the question. It's quite the process, as she's seen it twice already before, and it also is boring and unnecessary, as there can be the whole taking of blood and stamping done way before the morning of, as all it does is make the anticipation grow to heights that none of the kids want it to be. "Scary..." she admits. "There's always a chance, no matter how small that it'll be you. For the kids who have their name in there a lot... it's also a small chance that it won't be them, so we hold onto the smallest of chances to make sure we get through okay. And afterwards, when you're safe and sound, you pray that those taken to the Capitol make it back pain free."

"But aren't the tributes we get back dead?" Dahlia makes a face as her sister finishes tying the braid.

The other girl pauses. "Well... at least when they're home the pain has already passed. I mean, we've had District 9 victors before..."

"And they all suck."

"No they don't. Pilvent and Vee are perfectly fine."

Dahlia snorts. "One tribute is a man who lost four fingers on one hand and the other is a woman who can't even look at sunlight without having PTSD."

Cassiopeia turns her sister around at the snide comment, eyes ablaze in a furious winter. "They still won those accursed games, Dahlia, whether we want to believe it or not after looking at them."

"Death sounds like a better option."

"You're just saying that for how Pilvent and Vee are."

The two sit and chat, idly moving fingers to their hair as they discuss the next scariest thirty minutes of their life. Around some time when Cassiopeia thinks that the sun has reached its peak in the sky, she takes her sister's hand and drags her along. She misses her parents, but they'll be seen after the reaping. Dahlia complains that she's too old to be taken by the hand anywhere in the district, but Cassiopeia sticks her tongue out and drags the dark haired girl with her. No ifs, ands or buts about it, and she means it.

Cassiopeia's legs are jelly by the time the two walk to the town square, nothing more than a fifteen minute walk, but the heat and her dress and the fact that she's dragging what feels like ninety pounds of dead weight makes up for the fact that the excursion is not all that bad. She thinks, she mulls over the world, and Cassiopeia wants the day to already be over. She wants everything to be grander, bigger, and definitely work free. She hears the snickers and japes tossed behind her back like a game of baseball, that Cassiopeia Barley's head is filled with stupid little dreams and that she'll never learn. Cassiopeia Barley wants to live in the Capitol, she wants friends who actually stick by her side when the world gets tough, she wants serenity and tranquility. Nothing's off limits. If she dreams it, she can do it, and she'll one day achieve it.

That is if her actions were to ever match her words.

Dahlia blanches at seeing the kids getting their blood drawn, and Cassiopeia coaches her through it, hands at her sister's face while she instructs. "Don't think about it. It doesn't hurt, I promise. The sections are shown by the markers along the ropes. We stand on the left, and I'll only be a few yards away, okay? It'll be over before you know it and we'll go back to braiding each other's hair. Okay?"

"Okay..." Dahlia agrees, but the girl still stutters a cry of pain as the needle goes in, the crimson river of life is drawn out, and the world starts to spin.

Cassiopeia stands firm in her spot, eyes following Dahlia and the pain goes unregistered. Her bedroom is calling her name, soulful sheets and pillows, and an azure night sky to stare at the stars whenever she gets bored. One arena, she remembers, when she had to have been younger than the eligibility for the reapings, had a starry night sky regardless of time of day, and Cassiopeia yearned to be there, her mother's face grief stricken and she's pulling her daughter away from the screen, grip hot as iron, and Cassiopeia's cries echo in her head.

The doors to the Justice Building open and out walks the two remaining District 9 victors, Pilvent and Vee. Pilvent is an aging man in his late sixties, coherent enough to speak and lecture on the games, but forever haunted by the loss of his fingers. Wire like wisps of pallid hair stick from his ears, head entirely bald, and Cassiopeia cannot have a gorgeous life in the Capitol with all her hair gone, as a wig does not seem ideal to her. Vee is another matter altogether, much younger, at eighteen and a victor from only six years ago, the 194th year. The girl is heavy, having put on a lot of weight since her victory, and Cassiopeia cannot see over the crowd's head at what the other victoress looks like, as her appearance changes with the week.

What she can see, and it sours her very core, is their escort, the bumbling Winston Jewel, a seventeen year-old _boy,_ it's always the fact that he's just another teenager like all of them being forced to reap people of his own kind to their death that gets her. Winston stands tall, and there's not an ounce of muscle on his body. Pilvent places the microphone stand in front of the escort, and yet the poor - though Cassiopeia herself does not view the teenager himself to be poor, quite the opposite - boy trips over it still, collapsing to his hands and knees. Winston's hair is a stunning navy blue, like the starry skies Cassiopeia stares at when it's night, and it's perhaps the only redeeming quality she can find in him.

Winston's face is flushed a sparkling red, and he straightens out the smooth velvet leather of his jacket. "Happy Hunger Games, District 9! You all should know who I am by now, I'm Winston Jewel, this district's escort," to his credit, no one claps, not one and his face flushes again. "This year is the 200th Hunger Games, our eighth Quarter Quell! How exciting would it be if District 9, in a short six years brought home another victor! You guys could join the ranks of being a district with a Quell victor too, and that'd bring so much fame to you guys, wouldn't you agree?"

"Just got on with it!" some teen from the fifteen year-old male section calls out. "We don't want to be here, just as much as you."

The escort's face goes pale. Winston's never had, not in his training, nor from his two years of prior District 9 experience, been yelled at to move the reaping along. "Right! However, it seems that this year the Quell twist has not been revealed to anyone yet, and I'm told that this'll happen sometime during the week of training... but I digress! We'll start with the ladies!" Two massive bowls stand on each side of Winston's body, and Cassiopeia goes dizzy trying to count how many slips of paper must be in there which spell certain doom for someone.

Winston reaches in and grabs two. He tries dropping one, but a gust of wind blows a slip out of his hand, the one he hadn't dropped. The escort shrugs, snatching the one he had dropped back into his hand. Cassiopeia wants to reach across the other girls near her and reach her sister, just for one preemptive squeeze before the syllables pass over and someone's life is ruined.

She never expects it to be hers.

"Cassiopeia Barley!" Winston Jewel reads, face triumphant.

In her corner, something gut punches Cassiopeia to the ground. Heads spin and twirl towards her own, but she's unable to process anything except the dream. It begins to vanish from her, distant at every second where her luxurious life lays wasted and desolated at the bottom of a cliff, her friends gone, the starry night skies that she loves blackening into crimson star ways bathed in blood. She holds her hands over her ears as her name will not stop echoing around, and it's shattering every fiber within her body, painfully breaking apart bones. Will she ever be able to get out of this?

Something forcefully grabs her arm and Cassiopeia opens her eyes. The immaculate white of a Peacekeeper uniform is all she sees as she's lugged onto the back of the hulking man. She kicks and screams, she kicks and screams but no words come out, nothing breaks through and the syllables catch in her throat. She wants Winston Jewel to choke on his own spit till it ruptures in his throat, turning cardinal black and causing the escort to break out. Then the cry hits her ears.

"Cassiopeia! No! Don't take my sister away!" Dahlia's screams reverberate all around the town square, and Cassiopeia sees her sister in the throng of the other twelve year-olds. It is enough to cause Cassiopeia to burst into tears, and she's standing straight up, sobbing into her elbow as she's always loved Dahlia, she's never been able to truly withstand her company. She always thought, she's wanted to believe this ever since the two were old enough to speak, that her sister never really liked her, but now, in the moment drenched in emerald poison, Dahlia Barley has an unbelievable amount of love for her sister.

Winston's jaw locks, and his eyes look distant. "To whoever that is calling out in the crowd, you should've volunteered for your sister before she got put on the stage, darling," his voice isn't mocking, nor is it cold, but it is solidary and true. Dahlia's time has passed for her to save Cassiopeia from an unbidden hell, and now she's to stay, glued in place when doom overrides her. "Now, the gentlemen!" Winston claps his hands together, and a smile passes his lips. Careful to only grab one, Winston reaches in and is back at the mike. "A Mr. Milner Dempsey, please."

Cassiopeia's head flashes up and her eyes seize him, her district partner out in the crowd. Milner is looking down at his dress shirt, fussing over one of the buttons, messy hair looking dirty as it always does, and she recognizes the last name. So this is the slimy bastard she's never met? If he's anything like his father, she's going to hate him.

Someone pushes Miler, who whirls around on a heel and punches back. When the enraged boy from the section turns back to let the proceedings continue, a Peacekeeper is staring Milner down, gun in hand. Milner's smile of bravado vanishes, and it hits the boy a second too late that it is _his_ name that's been called by the bumbling idiot Winston Jewel, and his eyes turn into murderous rage.

He stomps past the Peacekeeper, Cassiopeia's eyes forever following the boy who jumps onto the stage. Milner's hands are in a blazing fit of retribution, hands going straight for Winston's throat. The escort lets out a squeak, and then the same Peacekeeper sent to collect Milner slams the butt of his gun into the boy's head, and Milner drops to the stage like a sack of rocks, knocked unconscious.

A silence settles over the district, and Cassiopeia wants to cry again, her sister gone silent, comforted by a blonde girl in the same sector. She looks up at the sky longingly, and her eyes are saddened that there's the baby butt blue staring at her, a blank expanse of bone bleached sky with no clouds, no stars... nothing. Just like District 9, she realizes. District 9 never provides good tributes, a breadbasket with a lot to offer but nothing to really show for it.

District 9 is nothing more than a breadbasket full of nothing, like Cassiopeia's stupid dream, like her heart, and the future she foresees.

* * *

 **And there we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #6: Breadbasket Full of Nothing, the District 9 reaping, and damn that was fun. I love looking really far forward into the future of the Hunger Games, giving districts randomly assigned victors because I can, and all the fun it brings me. I started typing this at 7:30... and even with a dinner intermission in between, it is now 9:30 as I'm typing this author's note, so hell yeah, done in two hours like I wanted. So... we were just introduced to Milner and Cassiopeia! Who do you like better? How do you think they'll fare in the Hunger Games? Still any possible allusions to the arena or the Quell twist, as I don't think either has been done before, but I may be wrong. Remember, to make it easier on you guys as you review ( _if_ should be the culminating term), chart the tributes down on who you love, like, neutrally feel towards, dislike, and hate, and don't lose track! It'll help for later. Now, I just went to the RNG and it looks like the lucky souls who'll see their tributes reaped is District 12! Normally the ones reserved last, haha, it looks like they're freaking second! So praise the RNG Jesus. I don't know when I'll have that chapter, as I can say I want it by such and such date, but I always seem to miss my promises. I'll strive for no later than July 7th, which is a week from this Friday, so plenty of ample time. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you review, letting me know how it all went! I hope to see you all again for Chapter #7: Pickaxed Dreams and Deaths. You all have made such good characters, keep the energy and hype up. Hope you all have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	7. Chapter 7: Pickaxed Dreams of Death

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new reaping chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, Chapter #7: Pickaxed Dreams of Death. I know that it has been over two weeks since the last update, and all I'm able to do is apologize, wince with a smile and try to not have it happen again. As I let a recent reader and submitter know, these of all the types of chapters in SYOTS to write, are my least favorite. While I love reading these tributes, putting it to the screen and giving everyone distinct personalities and not having things turn into information dumps proves to be quite the task. I also do most of my writing in one or two sittings, usually just one if I can help it. I like having the reaping chapters be in the mix of 5k words minimum as you saw with District 6, because having anything shorter feels absolutely incomplete, so mix the fact I want to write 5k in one sitting and see how it goes... I'm absolutely crazy. Then at times it also means I have a weak tribute and making that son of a gun interesting also is disadvantageous. The turnout of reviews and reading what you guys say makes up for it though, more often than not, so I digress. Here we are!**

 **This is the District 12 reaping, a reason why I love this out of order reasoning because, jeez, normally the poor District 12 tributes have to wait** ** _last_** **to be read and now you guys are in second! I'm still being anonymous on whose tributes these are, but ya'll reviewers are quite bad at keeping secrets lol. I got my schedule for my senior year of high school, and am pretty stoked with my three AP classes (got my scores for junior year on Friday, two 5's, woot woot!) and other blah, _blah_** **stuff. Anyways, enjoy the District 12 reaping, Chapter #7: Pickaxed Dreams of Death.**

* * *

 **Amber Proctor: District 12 Female P.O.V (16)**

* * *

Her hands grip the handle of the knife as if it is the very last piece of the earthly world saving her from death. The stick rests in her lap, pointing upwards like a weather vane, stirring somewhat as the girl moves with it, the serrated edge scraping up, _up, up_ and she's reminding herself of chicken guts splattering on the back porch, blood sizzling in the roasting sun, crimson streaks of life painting the wood a dark black... and she slices up too far, cutting her finger.

"Dammit..." the girl swears, biting down on her hand and sucking up the blood into her mouth. The taste is far too bitter, and she's wanting to hurl at the very faint feeling touching her lips. Sixteen year-old Amber Proctor goes back to whittling away at the stick till the end she's been hacking away at it sharp and gleaming in the hazy morning rays of sunlight. Over by the other end of the porch, arms crossed over, is her sister Tara, young and absolutely rolling her eyes in a ludicrous manner.

"What are you going to do with that, Amber?" she taunts. "Kill a salamander?"

"Maybe," Amber shrugs. "Would you like to see me try?"

"No, I wouldn't."

Amber leans up against the newly made spear, blonde hair in a ponytail pulled back revealing her pale forehead and gleaming sapphire isle eyes. She does not speak, but instead stares ahead at her sister. Tara raises an eyebrow at the odd action, as all the older sibling is doing _is_ actually bearing her eyes into Tara's, arms crawling up in a strange uncomfortable crawl. Amber watches scenarios flash by which nearly send her to her knees. Her sister, who's twelve, has her first viable reaping, and she imagines the spear going straight through the younger girl's back, copper and organs flaying everywhere while Tara collapses to her knees. Amber can picture herself sitting in the living room watching the television screen, arms out as she tries, she fights to save her sister, and mourns her death in secret. The blonde begins to shake violently at the thought, shuddering and dropping the spear. Tara's eyes widen and she rushes over to her.

"Amber! Amber, snap out of it! You're just imagining things!"

Her sister's voice is hitting a barrier, cold and black, silent and dark, a mallet pounding again the stone till it breaks, collapsing like a statue of President Coriolanus Snow. Amber juts out of the vision, gripping her sister's arms so hard that her fingers press indents in Tara's arm. "I saw you die, Tara! I saw it, I _saw_ it!"

"It's just your mind playing tricks..." Tara soothes her older sibling, tiny and skinny arms clutching around her shoulders. "It's my first year, Amber. If anyone needs to be worried, it's you. My chances of being picked are slim! I'll be fine!"

"But _I_ felt it Tara! You're not listening to me, I-" Amber growls, but Tara kisses her sister to shut her up, the action being quite effective, and Amber's entire mind shuts down, blank and unresponsive.

Tara backs up, her own thunderstorm gray eyes reflecting an entire world of sadness and emptiness, pity looping through nickel rings and lacing the lining of her heart. "I know you just want to protect me, Amber, but I'm fine. I should be the one worrying about you. I can't have you leave..." She leaves a lingering hand on Amber's face, and the older girl shivers despite being underneath the harsh glow of the sunlight above, cold hands gripping a cold cheek, and Tara gives a lasting smile, floating back inside.

Amber stays still for a few moments, breathing heavily before glancing down at the spear. She sneers at it, picking up the weapon and chucking it as far as she can above her head into the backyard. It sticks up into a tree a good ten yards away from her, stuck in a wedge about fifteen feet high. She looks down at her hand in surprise at the strength, completely taken aback by the amount of sheer power in her throwing arm. Amber's always known she had some sort of ability to lift heavy boxes and weapons when in her off time, but she's always had horrible motor skills in flinging objects across a room.

She sits down in the grass of the backyard, letting the emerald waves take her away, whispers clinging on the wind and sweet valley songs drifting down from the clouds. Her thoughts drift back to her sister, and Amber remembers when she saw Tara come into the world of Panem. It is the first and last time she ever thinks a dark thought about her sister, as Amber knows too much of Panem at such a young age and wishes that her sister will never have to experience the travesties that others like her will have to endure. It's been at that point forward that Tara is Amber's life, and she's unsure whether or not a bond like this is meant to exist. Is it parasitic? She knows, deep down, though Tara hardly says anything, that it bothers her. The Seam look in Tara, stormy eyes, dark soil hair, olive skin... it gives away a particular edge that glints off of glares and Amber is beyond proud to say Tara is her sister.

Amber decides to not dwell on Tara any longer, and it's all because she's upset about it. She, at times, wants to wring her sister's neck. Nothing major, just a snap and twist, and then it's all over... the girl blinks, wondering where on Earth that idea had come from into her head. The outside air no longer feels warm, and Amber runs her hands over her arms. It makes sense to the blonde, though rarely, about why she loves Tara and cares for her so much. She's the last and only reminder of her mother in a good light. At the very least, the woman who created her, created her sister and Amber only wants to use that spear to shove in between her mother's ribs. Laurel Williams - at least, that's what Amber thinks her mother's name is, for she hasn't ever thought of it unless on days where it mattered - is the reason why she hates love. Everything is perfect in Amber Proctor's world. Grades are good, boys are good, family is good, and the Hunger Games do not seem threatening to her at ten. All of that comes to a screeching halt, a single moment shattered with a sledge hammer when she comes home early from school and sees Laurel, _her mother_ , standing in Amber's bedroom kissing some other man, hands down his pants, his hands on her chest, and Amber roars a guttural bellow that she's never felt before.

Her mother breaks away from her lip lock with this stranger - Amber learns his name and it even sounds like he's a jerk... Dean Williams, and Amber is glad she never sees his rat face. Laurel watches as her daughter rants and screams words that shouldn't even exist, because this is a complete turn around from the girl she said goodbye to earlier in the morning, and Amber runs her mother out of the house, an iron pan in her hands that she cracks on Dean's skull, and the reason she no longer has to see Dean is because he's dead, buried six inches deep underneath a birch tree with a tombstone marking how he dies. _At the hands of a ten year-old girl. He died. That's the end of his story._

Her father, Jonas, comes home and finds Amber sitting in the middle of the living room of their house on the floor, sobbing, Tara who isn't even six yet, rubbing her back as the girl sobs uncontrollably. He places a hand underneath her chin, and Amber stares into her dad's gentle sky blue gaze, banana blonde hair wet from the afternoon rain, and Amber hugs him. Nowadays, Jonas's arms around her back are mere wisps of ghosts, because she never sees him while he's down in the mines, clamoring away at boulders for every second breaths death, and she's stuck wanting to hate him, but he's the only one who comforted her after the affair of her mother came to light. Laurel lives happily in the Seam with a boyfriend apparently, but Amber has no idea what the man's name is, and she's content that she does not know because she very may well go over and crack that man's skull open as well.

It's because of her mother that Amber does not love. It rips her heart out, stamped and crushed underneath the dirt where the word 'never' is written in blood. Amber reads in some 'professional' book in the school library that it means she's asexual, and that is perfect for her as it means she can focus on other things where sex does not matter to her, mainly protecting Tara from the incivilities of the known world around her.

The back door swings open again, known to Amber by the creaking of the hinges that resemble drawers shut at night, panted moans echoing against the wall, and she closes her eyes to block out the noise, the cacophonous noise, the vile screeches of love in mid-coitus, and everything stops as if an insect flies into the side of a building. Tara sits down next to her sister, lying down on the grass, arms crossed behind her head.

Amber follows suit and both Proctor sisters lay in the grass, looking up, and for a few moments there is absolute silence. Tara breaks it first, however, which Amber finds odd as her sister never likes being the center of attention. "I got told that Dad is going to be able to go by the reaping. He gets the day off after it's over, so we can go to the pond if you like."

The blonde nods along, a faint smile stretching across her lips. That sounds nice to Amber, a moment of pure halcyon life which all the impurities put on hold so she can relax. Amber lets out a sigh. "This feeling is the worst."

"What feeling?"

"Knowing what comes next after the reaping."

"And what would that be?"

Amber looks at Tara, a steely fire behind her eyes. "Sometimes I know the kid who gets picked, and other times I don't. When I do know them, no matter how well I do or do not, it makes me think. You know deep down, they aren't surviving. So it makes me wonder that if I got picked, would I do fine in the games?

Tara goes to lay on her side, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Why would you ever think about that? I'd rather not try my chances!"

"I'm volunteering for you if you're picked," Amber says, changing topics quite decisively, as they're getting into territory that will bother Tara because she no longer wants to continue this conversation. "It may be cliché, but you're the world to me. I can't live without you."

Her sister is silent, and Amber is fearful that she's scared her out of speaking, for that's quite the declaration to spout out without any preamble. Tara bites down on her lip, and winces. "I know Amber, I know." However, and Amber realizes this with a pang in her heart, that Tara does not say anything about volunteering in her stead.

Amber looks up at the clouds and pictures a world unlike her own. In the clouds is a king with a mighty lance, golden and gilded all over while he professes his love for the subjects of white fluff and rain. She pictures a palace, gardens growing rampant with grass that is a cotton candy pink, waterfalls of amaranthine stain glass, and violets that spring up on cobblestone paths. An entire existence naked to the human eye for it is far above the vast horizons that she cannot see. A place where the Hunger Games does not exist, and Amber can nearly taste the euphoria on her tongue, sweet and everlasting.

Tara sits up and hugs her knees to her chest, but Amber hardly registers anything as her picture warps into something much worse. The clouds darken, and down falls acid rain that hits her skin, dissolving, yet the blonde feels nothing - pain does not exist, it _cannot_ exist, it shall _never_ exist - and the palace crumbles like sand, the flowers wilt to a brackish green, the waterfalls sour with the acidic taste of blood, and the lance flies out of the king's hand and stabs him in the heart.

She lets loose a scream, flying upwards, and Tara is yelling her name again, only this time the sound is not coming through, and it will never come through. Amber cannot get the picture of the dead king out of her brain, no matter how hard she wills it. The expression is haunting, eyes open and glazed over, looking at a deathless night, a starless night that Amber does not want to see.

The face changes into Tara's, the eyes fill with a darkness unlike any other, and Amber's skin begins to burn, it begins to hurt, and she's screaming out the loudest wail of pain she's ever endured, as pain does exist, it does indeed hurt, and she cannot deny the fact any longer. Amber watches the clouds dissipate into a shower of glass, and the world forever goes black.

 _Long live the king, Amber Proctor, long may she reign._

* * *

 **Joshua Minthel: District 12 Male P.O.V (14)**

* * *

"Thank you! Please come again!" shouts youthful Joshua Minthel, his left arm stretched out in a wave as he says goodbye to the last customer for breakfast, a portly old man with wiry pallid hair curled up at the sides. Joshua holds the handful of coins the old man gave him in a vice, counting out the sixty five cents for a cup of warm coffee brewed fresh and home made before dropping it in the change jar.

He walks through the dinky shack that holds as their restaurant and changes the _Open_ sign to _Close,_ taking a deep breath as he does. Joshua knows what happens next, what this means when they close early on a bright August morning. The Reaping awaits, sitting in his stomach deep and broken, a sharp rock imbedded somewhere between his ribcage and heart, waiting for a pickaxe to wrench it free.

Joshua sees his reflection in the mirror of the door when he shuts it, weathered sandpaper hair combed neatly for restaurant presentation, icy winter blue eyes, and peeling skin from his ears down to his neck. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it as the water slicks to his scalp and feels particularly uncanny. Joshua dislikes having to be so particularly tidy when running the Minthel Coffee House, which he takes pride in repeating as he's part of the reason why their restaurant is it's name. The Minthel Coffee House is a family owned and operated restaurant in the Seam, particularly in the poorest of the poor area because that's where his parents made the executive decision to place it.

The boy takes a look around the shack, and his heart swells with joy taking all the details in. There's nothing more than four or five tables situated in the space, nothing too large, yet nothing too small. Along the walls are chairs where individuals can sit down and enjoy their coffee, read the custom made comics and newspapers by Joshua's brothers, and eat their breakfast in their hands because there's no more space at the tables. Though the Coffee House is hardly anything fancy, the outturn of customers and guests wanting a quick bite to eat on their way to the mines is invaluable. He goes over to the coin and bill jar, counting out everything by hand. "We made fifty eight dollars and thirty cents this morning!" he shouts excitedly to his family, who are in the back cleaning up dishes and ingredients. Joshua's stomach growls, as he's woken up bright and early to help open the restaurant, and he hasn't had time to make anything to eat.

He peels off the apron hugging his waist and drops it in the basket by the counter where his mother puts the food ready to be served. An empty coffee pot rests against the wall where Joshua leans down to pour the rest out, warm smells of chocolate and hazelnut wafting into his nostrils, reminding Joshua of home with a smile. In the back, loud sounds of pots and pans colliding into a thunderous symphony of their own drown out the tiny fan in the corner blowing air into the kitchen.

Joshua remembers the day that President Jade Dermure comes from the sky in a massive moving house that floats, landing in the square. Two years ago, when he is ripe for the reaping, his father falls in front of Jade's path. She nearly has him shot before Joshua's father lets out his lifelong dream to run a restaurant in the Seam, because every other facility to eat at is stuck in the Merchant class, a place often too expensive because the Merchant families are stuck-up jerks. Jade lifts her nose up in disgust, but she promises to grant the Minthel family their lifelong dream.

Two days later, Joshua is standing in the middle of the abandoned shack being dressed up to be a restaurant, and his heart fills up with expectations. His dad is crying, overcome with joy, and his mother cannot stop smiling. He looks over at his brothers, Tommy and Ronald, who would rather be anywhere else in the world, but the Minthel family moves as one unit.

Smoke fills a corridor of the kitchen where his father works at sautéing a plate of wild mushrooms grown in the next door neighbor's garden so the Coffee Shop can use it for a wild mushroom and rice soup, an August specialty. Dave Minthel, with his onyx black hair and steely hazel eyes, looks at his son and quits moving the pan.

"How'd we do for the breakfast shift?" he asks, ruffling Joshua's hair.

"Almost sixty!" Joshua exclaims happily, throwing his arms around his father. In the corner, Joshua eyes both Tommy and Ronald glaring at him against the cabinets, their arms and legs covered in powder and flour from the pastries they sold earlier in the morning. They're jealous, as Joshua can read the inside of their head and see the hatred glimmering off their identically cold mahogany eyes. Joshua can only shrug at them and try to simmer off the anger. It's not his fault he's dad's favorite. Dave Minthel is allowed to love one child more than the other if he chooses to. Besides, their mother, Sara, loves both Tommy and Ronald as if they're angels.

"That's great! Maybe we can finally upgrade our fan! I know Miss Weathers wouldn't mind helping chip in a few dollars here and there," Dave says, a twinkle glistening across his face. Or perhaps it is the sweat dripping of his brow, Joshua is unsure how to tell. "Why don't you help your brothers clean the dishes? Mother is currently planting a few more vegetables over in Miss Weathers' backyard, so she can't do it like she usually does."

A pit of despair opens up in Joshua's stomach, as now both of his brother's have their glare curl up into a vicious smile. Though Joshua is older than Tommy and Ronald, his younger brothers are twins blessed with the height gene and tower over him by a good three inches, a height that bothers him and allows Joshua to get a many broken bones and trips to his room of the principal's office. Joshua drops his hands to his side, scoots away from his father who returns to sautéing the mushrooms, and he slinks over to the sink which is filled to the brim with dishes.

Joshua grabs a plate smeared with ketchup and washes it off. Added presences stir something uncomfortable behind his back, and then Tommy reaches forward and plants a hand on his brother's shoulder. "What, Joshua? Did Dad actually ask you to do something once in your life?"

"You going to cry about it like you always do?" Ronald antagonizes alongside Tommy, a chip-toothed grin making his insult slightly less effective due to the silliness of his face.

The oldest of the trio grits his teeth and shakes his head, refusing to answer. He's not going to fall into the trap of letting his brothers pick on him and he violently retaliate. Joshua recalls the last time he let his anger get out of control with a broken window, Ronald clutching at his arm and sobbing, and the bloodied shard of glass stuck in the oldest boy's hands when he drops it out of pure shock.

Tommy sneers, seeing his jab did not get through. "Hey, idiot! I asked you a question!"

"It's not polite to not answer when someone is talking to you, runt!" Ronald adds.

Joshua stays true to the course and continues wiping down the dish. He feels Tommy's hand release off his shoulder, both instantly relaxing, the back loosening up where his muscles feel less rigid. Fear paralyzes him however, when he registers that there are fingers slipping lower and lower, lower unlike anything he's comfortable with. It reminds him of a night, a night doused in green light with a man who has hands shrugged into the pockets of his jacket, a cold December air making Joshua feel lonesome, the curtains, the blood, the hands that roam, and then Tommy squeezes. Joshua drops the plate into the sink with a splash, and he turns on his heel, startling his younger brother.

He raises a fist and smashes it into Tommy's nose. The younger boy sprawls backwards, knocking Ronald over to the tiled floor. Tommy lets out a cry of pain, holding a hand up to his noise while scarlet seeps through the gaps. Joshua lowers his fist, the pressure around his crotch lightening up, and he's never felt more liberated than in this moment. Dave pauses from his cooking and rounds the corner, only seeing that one of his children is presumably clutching a broken nose and that one of his children did it.

"Joshua!" Dave exclaims.

"Dad, he touched my-"

"I don't care Joshua, just because he touched your arm does not mean you go and punch him!"

Joshua begins to protest, but Dave gives a glare his way that turns his blood to ice. Ronald struggles to his feet. "We were just trying to talk to him and he turned around and walloped Tommy on the nose!"

A new fire surges through the oldest Minthel sibling's blood, but he says nothing, instead letting the fiery rage fuel itself. Dave gently lifts Tommy's hand away from his nose, and wipes at some of the remaining blood, which is not gushing or seeping at any sort of strong force. Tommy lets out a weak sob, and flashes a glare at Joshua.

Dave looks at his oldest with appraising eyes. "You and I will discuss this after the reaping. Ronald, get me the gauze. Joshua, the reaping starts in an hour. I suggest you head down to the square and explain to the Peacekeepers why your brothers will be late to their first reaping. I really don't want Peacekeepers to come here tonight and break everything because we were late."

Joshua looks up at his father, voice silent as he's lost all urges to speak. He nods solemnly and races out of the restaurant, fingers dabbing away at the tears forming in the corner of his eyes. He runs and runs, never looking back as houses blur together and the grey drowns out into dark storm clouds, and the rain falls against Joshua's shoulders while he stares into the creepy stare from the stranger backing him up against the corner. Before he knows it, as he must've been running for what felt like twenty minutes, he's colliding into the line of boys and girls his age waiting to get their fingers pricked and stand like livestock, corralled for the reaping to take them away.

Slowly the line starts to move, and eventually the clouds reach high noon and cover up the brazen sky, the sunlight disappearing and the world turns into the cold underwater zone he's met many times before, and Joshua shudders as the Peacekeeper grabs the boy's finger, zaps it, and off he goes. When Joshua crawls into the fourteen year-old male section, he sees his father walk up with Tommy and Ronald. Tommy's nose is wrapped up with gauze, white bandages covering his freckled face, and Ronald's eyes are wide with fear.

He watches his brothers stand in line, whispering together about subjects he presumably thinks are either girls, working, the games, the reaping, or Joshua himself. Both Tommy and Ronald look away in fear as the Peacekeeper places their finger underneath the injector, and his gaze still follows them as they stand arm in arm in the twelve year-old section. The doors to the Justice Building open, and Joshua follows his gaze to stare at the victors before him.

District 12 has two still alive, and they've had as a collective group, four since the fated pair of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. The two left alive or both a pair who married young after their victories which were back-to-back in some strange coincidence during the 160 years. Dime Garcia, a stunning woman with gorgeous Seam olive skin that glistens every time she moves has always captured Joshua's eye even if she's in her late forties. Her husband, Mint Caswell, who won the year after Dime, is pure and a Merchant stereotype with radiant sunlight hair and startling bright blue eyes. Joshua takes pride, just like he does in the name of the family restaurant, that both District 12 victors still alive are normal functioning people, with no signs of PTSD or depression, and Dime takes to ballroom dancing, saying she has Latin blood in her veins, a Hispanic soul that shoots off fire with cardinal dresses of flame. Mint is a painter who is given permission by President Dermure to go beyond the fence and draw the visage and greenery of the outside world, the non-Panem world, and everything makes sense to both of them, that both victors live regularly.

Between them is the escort of District 12, a very-well known disaster in the making of a Mrs. Carlyle Limes, a woman in her mid-thirties with vibrant autumn leaf hair that is curled up in a bun. Painted nails, nails probably done by Mint given the attention to detail, stand out as this year's irregularity with her outfit, nothing more than a simple turquoise jumper up to her neck. Joshua wonders how she's not absolutely dying in this heat, as he's hardly unable to ever stand the sun beating down on him on any other day. He's learned, and this makes him afraid of any sort of arena like it, about a place called a desert. Apparently District 10 is something like that, a teacher tells him one school morning, where the temperatures reach far warmer and scalding than they do in District 12, and there's hardly a snowy winter out in Ten like there is in Twelve, which makes shudders crawl up and down Joshua's arms.

Carlyle taps the microphone and everyone jumps for a few seconds as the courtyard had been preciously silent and quiet until her boisterous self appeared. Joshua likes, and it's very rare he likes anything about the Capitol, that their escort is sane like Mint and Dime. She's born in the right place in the right time - something Joshua can forgive - but understands that there's hardly ever any joy behind what she does. Carlyle explains that she likes being an escort because there are other candidates in the running for that position with the Capitol kaleidoscope gaze, who see nothing but fame and fortune, and she's to try and make everything as bearable as possible.

"Good afternoon District 12! For those twelve year-olds out in the crowd who have not had the chance to meet me, I am Carlyle Limes, the escort for District 12 who will be accompanying the tributes this year alongside your victors Dime and Mint to the Capitol. This year is the 200th Hunger Games, our 8th Quarter Quell in Panem's history. This means that our government prepared a special outcome for this arena and the situation surrounding the games, though what the surprise is, we shall know soon. As things normally go, I shall draw from the bowl of ladies."

Joshua holds in his breath and closes his eyes. He has a few friends in the female section, several acquaintances, and others he'll feel nothing when they die, but he shares this moment of pain at times. " _Anyone but..."_ he wills.

Carlyle reaches into the bowl and rips free a piece of paper, white and stark with the formidable black seal. The escort slowly walks up the microphone, and all of District 12 leans in for this precious and horrible moment. She unfurls the paper, and with a grim frown - Joshua knows that all other escorts usually read the slip with a smile, the sick bastards - "Amber Proctor!"

Joshua sees many heads in the girl's sixteen year-old section whirl around till their eyes are firm on the prize. He takes a look at her and notices that Amber is quite tall, taller than him, and she has a formidable build underneath the dainty dress clinging to her knees. He sees that Amber is stunned, clearly, by the open mouth, but she's looking back down the crowd at someone in the younger area of the girls group. Joshua is unable to crane his neck that far, but Peacekeepers troop down the stairs, batons drawn, and Carlyle bites down on her lips. A Peacekeeper roughly grabs Amber by the arm and drags her forward, and Joshua sees the girl is unable to register any other emotion than loss of something, and she's flung up onto the stage.

Carlyle reaches out and gives her a hand. "Amber, dear? May you like to say something into the microphone?"

Amber snaps her head at the escort, giving the woman quite the fright, and she takes the microphone with ease. "District 12!" she howls into it, causing everyone to cover their ears as Joshua gives a laugh at the fact that she does in fact show emotion- "If any of you touch my sister, Tara, you'll be sorry! I'll kill everyone to come back to her and save her! I mean it!" Joshua laughs again.

The escort pries Amber's death grip off of the microphone, tittering on her heels with an uncanny look on her face. "Okayyyy..." she drawls out with a sigh. "Now, the boys..." Carlyle walks to her right, keeping a hand on the microphone stand so Amber cannot take it in her own and violently react in some other unprecedented manner. Joshua pleads to the stars and sky that even though he hates Tommy and Ronald, part of him loves them and he'll never let anything get in their way.

"I can do it..." he says to himself. "If either is picked, I'll volunteer. I can do it."

Carlyle has a slip in her hands, and the syllables vibrate along the high rise buildings. "Joshua Minthel!"

There's one thing Joshua is unable to process, and that he hadn't said he could do it if he was the one to be picked. The words of his name echo in his ears, and the blood roars, and he pictures the empty coffee pot he forgot to clean up against the counter from earlier. The money from this morning's shift will never be split five ways, but four ways as he's buried in some casket. Joshua inches out from the section and slowly climbs the stairs. He keeps a straight face, though every pore on the inside is screaming and unleashing shouts of rage.

He stands next to Carlyle, utters his name, and blocks out the rest of what their escort says. Joshua looks over at Amber and catches her staring at some younger girl over in the District 12 section, someone he assumes is her sister, and it reminds him of his siblings. He flashes his eyes over to the same twelve year-old section and there is Tommy and Ronald, both boys evidently crying, and everything in Joshua's body snaps.

His brothers actually do care for him in some way or other, and he's about to leave. The last thing he ever truly does to his own siblings is break one of their noses and forget about the other.

Joshua pleads silently, eyes closed and he prays. He wants a pickaxe fresh from a morning work to come from the sky and crack open his skull, smash everything and break all his dreams, destroy the restaurant, and let the anger fester over and rage. It'll be better than the fate that is yet to come, it will forever be better than anything else he's ever experience. He wants to be pickaxed by dreams of death.

His plea, his pray, it forever goes unanswered.

The shorelines will run vermillion with his blood soon enough.

* * *

 **Alright! There we are ladies and gents, Chapter #7: Pickaxed Dreams of Death of Vermillion Shorelines, the District 12 reaping. I particularly loved writing Joshua's reaction to being reaped, and Amber's vision of a cloud kingdom shattered by everything wicked and evil in this world. And look there! A 6k chapter! Damn, I didn't expect that. I started writing at around 9:15 and here it is at 11:30 where I've finished... Woohoo two hours and a quarter. It is things like that which make me happy to be a writer, doing chapters like this. So, we have Amber Proctor and Joshua Minthel as our District 12 tributes, and I'm quite happy that they don't meet District 12 stereotypes, as there's no hunters or miners or bakers, or anything of the sort. We instead have two tributes with relationship issues among their siblings, and clearly Joshua has a dark past. Can anyone guess by the clues presented in this chapter of what happened to him, as there are two explicit occasions, horrible occasions that happened in his life. What about Amber? Clearly she struggles with fire in her veins... your opinions are welcomed! I'd love which tributes, including the D9 ones that you love, like, neutrally feel towards, dislike, and hate, as it feels like some of you aren't doing it nor understand exactly what I mean, and it'll help you out immensely when it comes to the Quell twist.**

 **I did the RNG again and I find this ironic, that we've had District 8 picked for the Chapter 8, although it is the third reaping. I hope that we got a higher district, 1-4 for the one after, but it doesn't matter. I have already given a victor for District 8 once, though I won't say what story of mine in the Hunger Games universe I wrote because that'll spoil that story quite heavily, but I digress. I clearly cannot give you guys a deadline date because I was three days behind this one, but here it is nonetheless. If you guys need an SYOT to read while you're waiting, I highly suggest reading PeonyPierce's Sweets to the Sweet, which I actually have two tributes in, a Mr. Damon Millers of District 2 and a Mr. Atlas Cian of District 4! Please review! Your opinions matter, and remember, reviewing lets me love you! I will shoot for another two week window of this reaping, Chapter #8: Bloodied Velvet, the District 8 reaping. Thank you all so much for reading! Have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	8. Chapter 8: Bloodied Velvet

***cue the loud groaning and the throwing of vegetables at me***

 **Yeah, hey everyone! I'm back from the lovely grave of not updating this story for a good thirty plus days. I can only shrug my shoulders and say I'm sorry. My other stories have been falling very behind on updates as well, so don't feel too bad. A few times I thought of giving up because that thought always crosses my mind at some point when writing a piece, and you all do know how tough these reaping chapters are. I went ahead and typed ahead a few of the private training session chapters and even three arena chapters that involve our quell twist. I apologize beyond all means for being so late, but I'm happy I didn't decide to throw in the towel.**

 **So yep, it's Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, #8: Bloodied Velvet, our 3rd reaping chapter, this time visiting ironically District 8! Last time we visited District 12 and those responses were definitely entertaining. I hope my hiatus doesn't bother everyone too much - I mean, I know they do, but I have always promised to finish this piece and that will happen! - and we can enjoy the morbidity that is the Hunger Games. Senior year of high school started for me on the 10th, and that has definitely been something to slowly acclimate to, as I'm running four WIPS at once. That's quite a workload and trying to time manage four sets of fans at once is not fun.**

 **Sorry again for the wait and enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

 **Roman Bercucci: District 8 Male P.O.V (15)**

* * *

Clouds filled with glass peer down from above with a glare, and Roman Bercucci has never felt more at home than he does in this singular moment. The fifteen year-old boy tosses the apple clutched in his right hand up in the air, shrouding the brightness of the sun, and the shadow covers his lanky file. Roman is quite tall for his age, a boasting six feet that he managed to spike in the earlier stages of puberty, where he's a good head and shoulders over the other boys his age, though there are those he spies coming closer.

Roman may or may not also be staring at their backsides, but that's a story for another time. Or so he thinks, as a blush settles on his cheeks.

He's leaning up against the side of a building, probably an old packaging plant for the shirts and jeans made in a factory a few blocks over. Weathered moss lines down the sides - the plant is devilishly envious of ivy, and the sickening decrepit gray is depressing on the walls, vomit, brackish and muted, bile - snaking around the pictures painted into the brick with chalk. A few sparse strands tickle his backside, and Roman giggles. He wishes the feeling can mutate into that of hands clasping against his shoulders, pulling him into a hug, but- never mind, Roman hates that he thought of such a thing.

There's a sense of infamy in District 8, memories and hauntings that linger into the cobblestone roads and the smell of tar and leather fills the empty air, thick and black, spilling over with fervent and a blistering fury of a thousand suns. After all, they're the district to have given the Capitol its very first victor. A gay District 8 male shooting arrows into the top spot. Roman hates that it just had to be someone different from the norm. He wonders if the Capitol likes the queer and weary. The two words don't necessarily mix, but in his mind they do.

With their first victor to be so strong, so handsome, so... outstanding, it's a chuckle of horror and dismay at how far District 8 has fallen from grace. He tries thinking about a victor they've had in the past thirty years. There's one, but he's always found her to be quite boring, muttering about squirrels and beehives incessantly till they fall asleep. Another, far older, and far worse than the former. Roman hates it. Almost as much as he hates the men who he falls in love with.

Roman Bercucci did not think that thought out loud.

"I thought you'd be here," a voice calls out from the distance, and Roman stops his apple tossing.

He looks over and is surprised to see his father, Yubin, a weathered and rough man in his mid-thirties who's seen too many harsh winters and too few bright summers, standing in the empty corridor. Roman has his dad's oily and greasy onyx locks, curly down to mid neck and it makes him feel like such a girl. He has no want for dresses and bows or corsages; Roman's a man through and through. Well, his boyfriend has other thoughts-

Roman Bercucci also did not think that thought out loud, or in his head.

"Hey, Dad," he says nonchalantly, trying to not show the distress of emotions on his face. Roman's found himself time and time again having his facial features betray his trust where he's gotten to the point of locking them away and throwing the key off a cliffside. Except, there aren't any cliffs in District 8 and certainly no long droppings, so his plan is thus ceased and desisted.

Yubin crosses the corridor to lean up against the wall with his son, swiping the apple from his hand with a deft motion that looked as if almost didn't happen. He winks as Roman begins to protest - halfheartedly, but a protest nonetheless - with open wide eyes and a stutter that brings mountain giants to their knees. The man takes a hearty bite out of the juicy red apple, the skin tearing and breaking like a bruise, shattered shards of pooling crimson and navy stains splattering to the concrete. Yubin smirks, Roman's face still registering slight disbelief. "Your mother is talking to Kassidy still, so I thought I'd give you some company since you're alone," he says.

"Well, you know I don't like being alone."

Roman is the eldest sibling of four, where he has a younger sister who is about to endure her first reaping, and two ten year-old twin sisters, which thank every god above are not at the eligible age just yet. There's not a day that goes by where Roman worries about life without any of his younger sisters, girls who he loves with every fiber of his being until there's nothing left by a straw man who makes dry baritone noises in the wind.

Unlike his sisters, Roman has the greenest eyes of the district; emerald orbs that practically glow in the dark given their sheer luminosity, but he grumbles that it makes hide and seek at night hard to do. Kassidy, like both of his parents, have stunning and gorgeous heavy setting dark eyes, warm maroons and distant mahoganies that glisten with joy.

"Are you nervous?" Yubin asks, crossing his arms.

Roman snorts. "That's a stupid question."

"It's my job, son. As your father, I need to-"

"Yeah, don't worry, you say it all the time. Can I have my apple back?"

"No." And to prove his point, Yubin takes another monstrous bite out of the apple, juice spilling down his chin and dripping to the sodded ground below.

The fifteen year-old switches spots, the moss digging into his shoulder blades starting to become a little too uncomfortable. He kicks around some of the dust by his feet, hands stuffed into the pockets of his withering velvet jeans. The description is hard to explain - Roman has a hard time trying to make sense of it to himself, and he's the one wearing the piece of clothing as it is - but in the most simplistic terms, they're a pair of jeans with velvet stitching that makes them feel luxurious to run your hands across.

Roman does this, actually, thinking about their originality, and the shivers clambour into his palm. Almost like is boyfriend's hands against his own as they kiss and roam and-

He blinks, furrowing his eyebrows, and wonders if looking into the sun will cause his memory to go blank.

"How's Kassidy?"

Yubin finishes the apple off, leaving the core to be crushed together in his hand, tossing it into the dirt like a discarded piece of trash. "Taking it better than most of the twelve year-olds in this district, I'd imagine. She's only cried once. I remember sobbing in my mother's arms for hours on end before my first reaping. I cried in her arms every single time. Seven years in a row, actually. It seems to have done the trick."

Roman raises an eyebrow. "Many scared kids probably cried in their parents arms-"

"Do you need to?" his father asks, gentle and warm, his eyes sorrowful as he looks his son in the eye.

Roman takes a step back, not expecting quite the abruptness of the question. His head is swimming with thousands of thoughts every single second - _of course,_ he's upset that his life is being gambled away, but there's a part of him that is a stoned off wall, no emotion going in and no emotion going out - but a scowl complacently twists his lips. "No, Dad, I'm fine. The reaping no longer scares me."

His father stares at him, a stare that bothers Roman where he feels like bugs are beginning to crawl on his skin, but it is a look that pierces through flesh and picks apart the lies, the deceit, and it gets to the very inner core of that human being. "You're not a very good liar, Roman."

"At least let me think I am?"

"That'll be a sure way to get killed. You tell a Career you're good at this such thing so he doesn't chop your head off, _and_ then he finds out you're incompetent and realizes you lied about it? The Capitol might as well prepare a casket for you if that's how it's going to be."

"It almost sounds like you're writing off my own death," Roman scowls.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm just playing out possible scenarios."

Roman sucks on his bottom lip, turning around from his father and listening to the calm serenity of District 8's marketplace. On Reaping day, it is a ghost town with banners floating in the wind, their letters torn off and commodities strewn everywhere as if a Tasmanian devil came in and made a wreck of the place. It brings goosebumps to his arms when he thinks about how on any other given day there is too much cacophonous and boisterous noise for the buildings to handle, where the sounds and syllables bounce around the bricks and fling themselves into the air where one end of the District can hear the other. Roman thinks the buildings in District 8 are poorly designed, with paint coming off if one runs their hand through it.

It's his coping mechanism - Roman's coping mechanism, in particular - that makes sense of everything. The world is in shambles, but he does not want it to necessarily change. Having it change shall put everything else out of proportion and presumably mess everything up, because before someone is able to create conduct and order, it must slough through the mess first, and that only causes more oil spills, more factory fires, more dead children, more Hunger Games casualties, and more talk of rebellion.

District 8 is too stupid and poor for a rebellion.

Yubin sighs, putting his hands behind his head while he leans back. "Man... if I was a teenager again..."

"You'd be going through the same crap I'm going through."

"It was slightly easier."

"How's that?"

"It just was," Yubin shrugs, smirking as a twinkle in his eyes plays with every passing word. "The Hunger Games have been around for two hundred years, Roman. Imagine how many generations of a single family in any district has had to go through with these wicked games. Life in Panem for the past two millennia have not been _easy,_ but it seems like each upcoming group of eligible teenagers become more reckless and crazy, and that just makes everything that much more unpredictable."

Roman smiles, a full fledged smile for all his scowls and plain faces. "Crazy is _fun_ , Dad, that's the whole point."

"Which crazy are we talking about?"

"Does it matter?"

"One is clinical and makes you insane. The other is you putting yourself in life threatening situations and escaping them unscathed. Either way, there's a dead 'crazy' person."

"You worry too much," the boy says snippily.

"You _are_ talking to your father, Roman, I suggest you watch the tone."

At least, that's what Roman thinks, but he hopes no one of importance hears him say that aloud.

Roman is not even listening to Yubin, but rather having his gaze become transfixed on a fly as he watches it zip and zap from concrete corner to the other. Fragile wings of reflective glass shine in the sun's glare, spherical orbs of darkness to peer into, and he's tilting his head to observe the creature. Bugs are fascinating. As long as they're not on his skin. However, what he does like is that one guy's hands cupping his face as they-

He has absolutely no idea where any of these thoughts are coming from, and it's bothering him. Can a man live if he removes his brain from his skull?

Back to the fly. It seems to sniff the corner it's currently perched on precariously, as if the stone is toxic and will cause the poor nuisance to plummet four feet to its death. Roman watches with fascination as the legs twitch out, one seemingly to go limp as if it is paralyzed, and then for a strange reason, the fly drops and goes to the concrete. It has to be dead, and in Roman's head, he plays a sound effect of a loud _THUMP_ to signify the fly hitting the ground.

Yubin watches his son's face go through an array of emotions, and the father is unable to pinpoint exact rhymes or reasons why, except he's scared that his not too bright boy has suddenly gotten a bright idea that'll forever hurt him.

"Roman?"

The boy looks at his father, glorious emerald eyes lit aflame with an idea, a thought at shock value where the paralysis sets in, rigor mortis comes afterward, and the luminous void of death with paper white skies and lights meaning doom is certainly near. "I've got a strategy," he smirks.

* * *

 **Ava Parrish: District 8 Female P.O.V (15)**

* * *

The sketchpad smells like mildew, but that's because it's been dropped into the kitchen sink one too many times. One of the corners is crusted over with mice droppings that forms a solidified ridge of fecal matter, another opposite it dyed a bright hue of carnation pink. The cover is scratched off and now nothing more than an empty grayness that can be used for anything. One particular page that has been flipped to does not have a drawing on it, but rather words in a fancy calligraphy that looks like it's been written by a machine. The swoops are too perfect and calculated, with a dabble of ink going down from a 'k' swipe, the letter z having crossing tails that almost make it resemble a sideways and fancy s.

Legs stretched out and crossed together sit in a cushioned field of flowers, a hill overlooking a clear and aquatic lake down below. A pocket of bright sunshine covers the vicinity, and it being one of the only spots in District 8 not constantly plagued by at the very least a centimeter of smog that blackens out the bulb of light in the sky. Everything is enriched and alive here in this corner of the world, warmness that is able to be seen on the tips of the grass blades. Dew drops make pictures in the raised foliage. A spider, a teardrop, a broken heart, and the aspiring poet takes them all in.

Perhaps the only discordant noise in the outcropping is the harshness of a pencil against the paper of the sketchpad, obsolete gray tips slashing and stabbing, tearing the through the veil of white till nothing but scraps of paper remain that flutter into the wind - words that go unspoken, chronicles that go unheard, memories that go unrecalled, lives that go and thrive in the clouds - leaving the poet feeling quite unsatisfied.

The valley has gone through autumns where the sun shines all the time. Each leaf is a human personality exemplified by the brilliance of color in the stem, through the flowers that bloom among the wild mushrooms hiding underneath the hill. Animals thrive and nibble away at the flora, and there would be no Capitol painting in the world that could accurately capture the pure and sheer ethereal beauty being shown. Springs are even more delightful to sit through. The concerts of new hatchlings chirping through the skies fill the airwaves with harmonies of bluebirds and blue jays, cardinals, mockingjays, sparrows, ravens, and the once upon a time heard squeal of an ostrich. The hill does not change much between the Spring and the Fall, but it is where Summer and Winter make their grand appearance.

Summers are scorching, but a heat that makes being outside bearable. Steam evaporates off the lake, and the sand is white as a newly discovered pearl, gleaming in radiant bursts of light that are perfect for the poet to conceptualize into something of greater importance. Dipping into the water below brings sounds of utter alien-like feel to the poet's ears, bubbling croaks of frogs that swim. The hiss of a snake that slithers. The subtly and beats of a fish's tail that swims. The smile of the imaginary dolphin. The Atlantis feel of the coral reef beneath the shores. Beauty that goes understated.

Winter is a feeling District 8 knows all too well. The smog makes the skies darker, bleaker, grayer, and colder, but the valley is a wonderland of huge proportions. A frozen over lake to skate across, to trace your name in the snow flurries that glide on through the air like a visiting group of Capitol tourists. The trees are naked and the wood is a mix of ashy gray and beautiful white. A silver snowstorm that leaves snowflakes in the poet's hand. A snowman with a lack of a carrot for a nose. A burlap sack found in the drift, filled to the brim with scarves that are in a numerous plethora of colors.

The poet sees it all.

The poet feels it all.

Fifteen year-old Ava Parrish may be the most blessed human being in all of Panem to encounter such a gem and find it to be all for herself at times. It almost does feel like a fantasy - Alice in Wonderland has nothing as Miss Parrish, snap and swift side thrust of the hip and all - but there's no talking rabbit with a watch swinging around its hairy wrist.

She's sitting on the hill overlooking the lake, sketchpad and pencil in hand. This time, however, she's not drawing. She's never been an artist. As the lake finally knows what to call her, Ava Parrish is a poet through and through. Influenced by the ever so great Edgar Allen Poe himself, she takes pride in the gloominess of his works that is sprinkled throughout her own. There is only a few more minutes before she has to go and stand in the District 8 square for the Reaping, so she might as well use up all the time available.

Her stubby locks of auburn hair are tucked underneath her ears, a few strands poking out that tickle her nose. Ava sneezes, almost losing her pencil, as it'd not be all that fun to go racing down the hill to go retrieve it. She knows better than to let go of precious objects. Her life is one of those things. She doesn't understand why people volunteer to give away their life for a one-in-twenty-four chance of survival, but it is every single person's right to live the way they want to.

Ava watches from her spot, a marked butterfly quietly named 'Roger' flutter around before landing on a golden daisy. Her pencil spins around in her grip, and she begins to write.

 _Days of beauty._

 _Roger flutters and floats._

 _Days of happiness._

 _The flower is blowing in the breeze._

 _Everything is a mystery to me._

 _He's landed._

 _Added and extra weight._

 _Days of serenity._

 _A butterfly has met a daisy._

 _Days of friendship._

She doesn't think her poetry is all that good. She hates using such a basic word in her vocabulary. 'Good.' Utterly pathetic. Those in the district find her to be quite an aardvark, the one who summons strange tidings and bizarre events to grace the weathered tar factory land of District 8. Ava wants to call herself a creationist, but the problem is, her poems never quite seem to pop off the page and rather land in a muddled pile of scrapped ideas by her feet.

Her hand hesitates, hovering over the recent poem of Roger that she just wrote about. It is all about the repetition. The swipe of the letters, the slant of the hand as she writes. The breeze blowing through her hair at five minute intervals. The fact her work will get her absolutely nowhere. She writes another poem, one of much darker content, but still jolly and warm hearted in one looks deeply enough.

 _A beggar is poor if he doesn't have a cup to hold out._

 _A plant is dead if there is no soil for it to stick its stem into._

 _A child is lonely if there is no one to hold its hand._

 _A world is desolate if there is no one to occupy it._

 _A hillside is dull if there are no flowers to bloom from within._

 _A soul is tired if there is no fire to come and ignite it._

 _A Hunger Games is useless if there are no victors to be given._

Her head perks up as she writes the last line. Ava would say she's a woman of magic, where her thoughts often go to places unseen, but something about where the tangents wander make them journey into uncharted territories where she's unsure of what exactly she'll see. Ava rereads the sentence. _A Hunger Games is useless if there are no victors to be given._ It is no secret that every citizen in Panem slightly envies a victor. They are bathed in the bath of luxury from the time they win to the time they give their ceasing and dying last breath. A hitch in the road - _kink,_ Ava corrects herself, _a kink in the road_ \- occurs in isolated spots, but victors can act like a black sheep if left untamed.

Without a victor, could the Hunger Games slowly start to die away? Would the tyrant that is Jade Dermure wake up to see its lack of importance? Ava frowns. She hopes that there is some sanity in this idea, or otherwise she may take an eternal swim in the lake.

Though she is too poor to buy a watch - those things are what victors buy - Ava can tell that the time for an impending judgment day is coming. She stands up, brushing herself off. Where she sat, lays an impression into the grass and dirt. It pains her to leave, the poetess is supposed to stay forever rooted in the place where she comes from. Ava hugs her sketchpad close to her, keeping the pencil tucked in between her locks of hair and her ear.

She walks on silently back to the district; smokestacks and emotionless windows appear in the distance. Ava imagines herself walking through an invisible wall every time her feet cross the threshold of the magic valley to the dull home of her troubles. The distinction is unsettling. She looks up and a clean divide is drawn down the middle. Bright blue skies represent rebirth and joy, dark ominous skies represent death and solemnness.

Ava can see the throngs of people filing into line as there are many avenues into the town square. She taps her foot impatiently on the stone and jots down another poem. It, perhaps is a representation of thought that cannot be said without eliciting great confusion, but Ava doesn't have too much time to think about it.

 _We file in like mindless robots._

 _They prick our fingers._

 _Our blood is splattered on the page._

 _Two children and their deaths await._

Cheery. Ava scowls at the thought. It is not in her prerogative to think negatively. She is generally incapable of filling it into her schedule. Occasionally one will stumble across like a straggler during broad daylight, but at night the game plan shifts and Ava tosses and turns, screaming and screaming till the throat has gone raw with pain and blood because her mind is too malicious to handle.

Her eyes, though bright, are bloodshot from a current lack of sleep that she is suffering through. A few doctors in the district, and even one from the Capitol that the mayor specifically called for, have classified her ailment of insomnia, and that Ava is perceptible to nightmares of a wide variety. There is one where she's devoured alive by a gigantic snake with mind engraving black eyes that swallow up all of her creativity. Or where her voice is taken from her and the life that is her poetry and her vocabulary crumbles to the wayside like a sand castle being taken away by the waves.

One come to revisit her at least twice a week. Flames that are taller than tornadoes shoot into the sky during this nightmare. Ava's vision is clouded with smoke, tar and tobacco and coarse wine filling her throat, spilling everywhere to the tiled floor as she scrambles around, looking for an exit. The screams of the burning - oh god the smell, oh god the sounds - they fill her ears till there is nothing but a roaring sense of humanely suffering. Loud crashes. Lights in a hazard pattern of red and blue dance around her dazed skull. Ava is sobbing, but her tears are dry, and there's no emotion in them.

She's been too caught up in her thoughts on smoke and fires and the loveliness that is the cheering of death, that Ava doesn't register the stabbing of pain going through her as a Peacekeeper grabs her pointer finger. Her bloodied finger is smeared to the paper - she's thinking of the latest poem. The Games don't need a victor. They don't deserve one. - and Ava walks. Mechanically, robotically, she files into a spot. She has never felt like herself. Ava Parrish is fifteen years of age, and yet feels distanced and dispatched from all that is Panem and the travesty that surrounds her life.

The doors to the Justice Building open, and out steps two people. One of them is the escort, the other being the one of the victors made to mentor the tributes, but Ava cannot see who it is. Stepping up to the microphone is the youthful and engaging Hilly Yiss. Ava's always found it quite funny that the escort's first name ends in the same letter as her last, but she's tripping herself up on trivial matters. Hilly has luminescent sea foam green hair that is held up in a monstrous bun. All of the reaping kids in the pens - Ava knows they're labeled sections, but a pen makes it far more ominous and dreary - have a dull brown or grey clinging to their skin. Even Ava is dressed down in a simple one-piece black and white almost maid looking attire. Hilly's hair that has been birthed from all of District 4's citizens is damn near the brightest thing. She's energized, every year she's energized.

 _A rabbit never knows when to stop hopping._

 _Hilly Yiss never knows when to stop existing._

 _What do these two things have in common?_

Ava writes that poem down, ignoring the weird stares from the other girls around her. Hilly is currently bouncing around on her heels.

She gets a good look at the victor now, the man sitting himself in the chair that is the farthest away from the escort as he can possibly be. Ava whistles low, because their victor is looking _fine._ Needle Finch is twenty-five, having won the 189th Hunger Games at the age of fourteen. Ava has watched over and over again his games, Needle's bulking muscles appearing through the dress shirt he's wearing. Needle is built the way he is because District 8's factories need to have their equipment created. Although the custom used to be that District 1, 2, and 3 made the machinery for the factories, Jade wanted the industries to grow and support themselves and thus smelting facilities and blacksmith companies were created. Needle built his core, volunteering to help create the machinery, and thus he became to be a Career killing machine.

Hilly taps the microphone, and wastes absolutely no time at all in getting down to the business of things. "Hello District 8! Man, wow, it has been quite the year hasn't it? You all came so close to winning last year, top three must've been a dream come true! Well, luckily for you all, this is a Quarter Quell this year so who knows what'll happen! Any of you lucky guys want to be a victor this year? Needle will be glad to help you! Won't you Needle," she tosses a glance over at him, smiling expectantly, frowning heavily when all Needle does is glare at her. "He'll be there for you. Anyways! Let me start with the girls!"

She has one hand constantly gripping the microphone in case of some natural disaster - _honestly_ , Ava wonders why Hilly is so worried about things going wrong or that she's unable to impress Needle. Needle is a tough guy to impress - while the other digs in the large clear bowls filled to the brim with female names aged twelve to eighteen. Ava watches as Hilly swipes her long nails down and against the side of the bowl, one slip of paper caught between lioness claws.

Hilly pulls off a musical theater trick by swinging herself back to the upright position, hand still glued to the microphone and she unfurls the name on the slip. "Ava Parrish!"

Ava has read in books and has created poems off this fact, that sometimes, because people are in shock, there is no median response on the face or actually anywhere else on the body. She doesn't drop her sketchbook, she still has the pencil in her hand from writing the last poem about the ditz Hilly, and Ava climbs the stairs. Her stomach is twisting and churning inside as if she's been punched, but that's all the poetess feels. No pain. No hurt. Just emptiness. Ava stands by the escort, who is chattering away at her, but she's unresponsive and instead flips open her sketchbook to jot down a poem.

 _Life is too short._

 _I didn't heed the warning._

 _The Hunger Games shall be my grave._

Hilly looks at Needle nervously, slightly perturbed by Ava's lack of initiation to make conversation. "Okay... this is Ava Parrish everyone! Your District 8 female tribute for the year! Will that pencil lead her to victory? Who knows! Let me select the boy!" She repeats the same exact action, right hand now clutching the microphone in her death grip, a single piece of paper coming from the bowl, and she flicks it open. "A Mr.-"

Only those first two letters are spoken, not even the first name of what could be one unlucky fellow when the bravado filled cry echoes around the square. "I volunteer!"

Ava locks eyes immediately with a boy stepping out of the fifteen year-old pile that is the male's side. He jogs up, and the first thing she notes is a crazed, wild look in his eyes. A strategy of sorts, perhaps, but she's unable to pinpoint it exactly. While the entire world is distracted by Hilly Yiss, and the boy who's name she learns to be Roman Bercucci, one last poem for the day - she's made at least six - goes in with all the others.

 _He's a crazy one, just by the look in his eyes._

 _Well dressed, coated in velvet as if he thinks he owns the ground he walks on._

 _A bloodied one suits him better, I feel._

 _It has a nice ring to it. I hope it happens._

 _Roman Bercucci drowning in a suit of red velvet._

* * *

 **And there we are ladies and gents! That was Chapter #8: Bloodied Velvet, the third reaping, and this reaping being for District 8. It feels weird and yet comforting to be writing these chapters again after its been so long to write a real reaping. What are your initial thoughts on Roman Bercucci and Ava Parrish? I'll admit that this I think is the first time I've written tributes that stray a little or a lot off the beaten path that was given to me, and I sheepishly admit that Roman is slightly different that what was given to me, and Ava's only original trait besides appearance is that she's a poet.**

 **After the last two chapters made it quite clear that Cassiopeia and Amber were not as near likable to you readers as Milner and Joshua, I wanted to try and make Ava just as compelling as Roman, if not more. Her section in this entire eight chapter so far has been my favorite part to type, and I don't regret changing her character arc one bit. A few things to ponder about, though. What is exactly Roman trying to hide, either within him or that he's running from? What type of strategy do you think he's connected with coming from the fly becoming paralyzed and dying? I'm super excited for that part of his arc, if I am to be honest. Ava is a lovely ball of complexity. Which one of her poems was your favorite? I think I wrote either six or seven, all entirely free verse because poetry is so bleh to me, so my luck I get a character I love revolving around poetry. And is the fire dream all in her head or realistic?**

 **With all that being said, I randomized the numbers and bless be the powers of RNG that I did indeed did get a district in the one to four range. Our next chapter is District 2, and maybe this means we'll get another chapter in those upper constraints after that one as well. I can't, as usual, say for sure when I'll have the chapter out, as I did manage to type this 6k in about two hours and twenty minutes after weeks of staying away from the material... so eh. This was Chapter #8: Bloodied Velvet, and I'm always throwing in those hints about the chapter and reference to it somewhere. Chapter #9: Die by the Sword, will be the District 2 reaping. Thank you so much for reading! Please review, I hope you're still around for this chapter as it has been so long! Have an amazing day you guys! Love you all! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	9. Chapter 9: Die by the Sword

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, Chapter #9: Die by the Sword. Today, ladies and gents, is the District 2 reaping! It's been a long time away from this story, as per my usual line (something about SYOT's man, there's something about them). Then, I can thank a hurricane coming through for 11 days and wrecking that entire schedule up. My 18th birthday was in that time and now I am officially an adult who's a senior and high school and getting ready for the great step beyond. Keeping up with my studies these last two weeks since the hurricane has been the main reason why I haven't been on, plus the debate on which stories I need to update first and when and things like that. But, thanks to those who reviewed the D8 reaping, as I feel ya'll 7 or so will be the only ones to even give me a review which shows something out of the other 17 that committed... even if they never did *smiles sheepishly* There is a lot to get through, and I am being downright hard on the fact I am writing one of these chapters every single week, so we'll be at Chapter #13 by the end of the month if I prevail. Enjoy Chapter #9: Die by the Sword.**

* * *

 **Pomona Blair: District 2 Female P.O.V (18)**

* * *

Sunshine spills onto the end tails of the girl's dress. She laughs along the banter of the wind, teeth glistening and eyes shining brightly. Daises mill around the flower designs of her overcoat, blades of grass poking out like ground stalactites with ladybugs and dew drops decorating the tips. The light shines up her tanned arms, moles and freckles appearing underneath the glare of harsh rays and harsher words.

She's not alone, as she's currently giggling and carrying on with two other girls her age who smirk and laugh alongside her as well, but their facial expressions seem fake. Eyes that give off a feeling of not exactly wanting to be here, or a flash of a grin that is so full of cheese, a mouse would have a play day inside all the crevices and teeth croppings.

Eighteen year-old Pomona Blair runs a hand through her long dark chestnut hair that sits in one long fishtail braid against her back, accentuating the paleness and starkness of her white dress and gray shawl thrown over it. She giggles at her two best friends, Victoria and Amber, before collapsing back onto the hillside with another airy laugh. She's unable to control her laughing, and slowly Amber's equally ambivalent face turns dour as if she smelled sour milk; Pomona does not care what her friends are possibly smelling as she's unable to believe that the time is finally here. _Finally_ here.

"I don't know why we couldn't go and train one last time before the reaping is to start," Victoria says offhandedly, looking out past the overlook that their hill towers over, and into the glen of trees beyond where birds chirp and the sweet aroma of roses linger. Victoria Henrik's bright ruby red hair is a telltale sign amid the yellow and oranges of the daisy laden field, but her constant serious expression sharply contrasts the bubbliness of the hill on a much higher note.

Pomona rolls over onto her stomach, smirking. "I've been training nonstop since I was fifteen, Vicky. I think I can give myself the morning off."

"Won't your mother care that you got your dress dirty?" Amber sniffs. She sticks her nose up in the air defiantly, and Pomona rolls her eyes. The girl is just upset that Pomona got chosen to volunteer for the Quarter Quell and not her, as both girls when they were fifteen had been in the running, until Blair edges herself slightly above the competition to get that top spot.

"I don't particularly care what my mother thinks at this point," Pomona smirks again. "Either I come back from the games as a winner and I distance myself away from my family forever from that point on..."

"Or you die."

"Or I die," she agrees. "Which means, either way, I'm out of their hair and they are out of mine."

Pomona flips back over so now the hem of her dress rides up the dirt, and that her boots flatten the daisy spotted hill. She looks up at the sky and rests a hand on her stomach. Protectively.

Even though she is in a warm and sunny environment, on a beautiful hillside away from the drab and dreary gray of District 2, Pomona shudders and dark thoughts lace her consciousness. Pomona is two months pregnant, a slight bump starting to show, ever so gradually. She's feeling tired more often after an excruciating exercise; paying for second and third meals at the District School's lunch line, and most of all, she's avoiding one man. A sickening leech of a human being.

His smile reminds her of when they were younger. Leopold Duoal, spry and two years older than her, fails to become the lead volunteer when he turns eighteen and thus turns to try and become the Head Trainer of the facilities offered to the teenagers interested in becoming Careers. She's known him, with his great looks, and moonbeam silver hair to be quite the charmer, and she falls under his spell.

One afternoon, after a rigorous workout, she's bent over, taking a sip from the water fountain when he approaches her. She's fifteen to his seventeen, and he whispers the idea. _You should train to be the Quarter Quell volunteer for the 200th Hunger Games._ Something clicks in her head - Pomona Blair is destined to be great one way or another - and day in/day out until then she's training with him for five to seven hours a day, every day, every _week_ for the next three years.

Then two months ago happened.

Pomona just turns eighteen the evening prior. She's exhausted and has the day off from training. Leopold comes to her door with flowers and a goofy grin that she has found to be utterly delightful - it's _Leopold,_ he'll _never_ hurt me - and that is when her day is whisked away into something whimsical and fantastical now. He buys her lunch and dinner, they go to the library and read on old classics that their parents read to them as children, and then Leopold invites her to a bar with some of his friends.

She sits there, quite afraid actually as she's never been in quite an establishment such as a bar, where she witnesses Leopold change. His eyes become filled with lust, an amber haze that settles over his half lidded eyes till there's nothing but a coursing darkness flowing through them; his silver hair sticks around everywhere like a sea urchin, and then he kisses her. Pomona is caught completely off guard, having never been kissed before, so she struggles on how to kiss back.

Leopold, drunk as President Jade Dermure, walks her home... until he gets other ideas. Pomona is unable to conceptualize what is happening next. He backhands her, throws her against a wall, and all the while her throat burns raw with the screams full of paralyzed fear. "NO!" she howls, over and over again, hands clawing, trying to push him off, until there's pain, a blistering and coursing pain. Blood. _Why is there so much blood, oh my god I'm going to faint, there's blood and he's-_

Pomona falls asleep sometime that evening during the ordeal and finds herself back in her bed under the covers, with a nasty bruise on the left side of her head. She passes it off as a bad dream, because they are no other telltale signs that she had even been slightly injured, which Pomona is uncertain to find as either being lucky or horribly misfortunate.

Then her period doesn't come.

And that's when Pomona Blair knows.

She is pregnant.

With Leopold's child. And she had been selected to be District 2's volunteer. Once something like that is set in stone, unless she dies prematurely beforehand, there is nothing releasing her from this binding contract. A vow that cannot be broken. She has to go in, _she must,_ and there is nothing she can do about it.

Pomona has stayed silent, afraid of Leopold and the repercussions that can come out of this... which there are plenty of. Part of her wanted to cut the life form growing inside her via a sword and end everything - Leopold will not get his shining moment in the sun, she's sure of it - but then something causes her to pause. Something hits her, and even though there is no physical bundle of joy in her arms with a red wailing face, she's motherly and protective, and couldn't bear steal away a life of joy for her should she win.

So she trains harder, and the last two months have been perhaps more difficult - let alone the fact she's carrying a child nonetheless - than the three years prior to that when she begun the regiment. Pomona skirts away from Leopold every day, opting to train under Victoria and her father who would much rather help her than have some academy fruitlessly throw her life away.

And although Pomona does not know whether or not she is carrying a boy or girl, she has named her child. Whether or not she births a male warrior or a female apothecary, or a male apothecary or a female warrior, their name shall be Justice. A reminder to her that justice will be served to the man who did her wrong. And that thought fills her with a delight almost as sweet as honey suckle.

Suddenly, Amber gives a hard shove against Pomona's shoulder, and it causes the girl to blink.

"What?" she asks, quite angrily, as the thought of her unborn child brought back once again a motherly happiness only a newborn could bring.

Her best friend gives her a 'cuckoo' expression, quite unsure of where the sudden hostility is coming from. "Victoria and I were wondering if you were planning on getting married once you come back from the Games."

"Do you see me wanting to get married?"

"You've always been quite independent," Amber sniffs again, and Pomona wants to buckle over in hearty laughter. She has never seen someone filled with such vitriol and disgust at the fact there's someone else focused in the spotlight. Pomona sees it this way though, Victoria and Amber will get to live. Pomona and her Justice can go down in a heap of ashes and flames.

"It'd be nice," Pomona admits, hugging her knees to her chest. "To be married. I am told that Victor life is quite luxurious, as you're set off for life, but there's an emptiness to it. Am I really going to enjoy watching people die for fifty plus years? Kids that I've trained? Kids that my fellow victor partners have trained?"

"You don't have to be _so_ morbid," Victoria whispers, the girl having stood up to stretch.

Pomona shrugs, not responding to Victoria's blank statement. The world that they live in is morbid, where a new generation crumbles to the wayside and is like a rotting piece of fruit under the blazing sun. A single thought places itself in her head, though, whenever she gets stuck on the idea of perhaps becoming a victor and seeing future generations of children all collapse to the dirt with blood spilling out of their orifices. If she lives, and if her Justice comes out to the world, would her child still love her knowing that people were killed on their behalf so they could be born?

Half of her wants to laugh the thought away. Of _course_ her child would still love her. That idea would be preposterous to think... but then the rationale of her actions hits her full force. Would her child see another Leopold where Pomona stands, just under a different light? Performed a travesty, _several travesties rather,_ that hurt others around them... and now has multiple sets of eyes, everywhere, at all times, staring at them till their breath has come to pass.

She stands up with that happy thought. Amber and Victoria peer up at her, shading their eyes from the sunlight.

"Do you want to go back into town?" Victoria asks, immediately hopping up with her.

Pomona's stomach growls slightly, and she clutches it in embarrassment. She's been feeling a little woozy the past few days, where the room begins to spin, and where her stomach begins to make mating calls as if it has come alive and moans for it to be fed. She ate an amply light breakfast, not having felt quite hungry due to the queasiness below.

"I'm kinda hungry."

"Do you want to come with us, Amber?"

Her other best friend shakes her head in dissent. "I'm going to stay right here. When they ring the bells, I'll get up. It's quite peaceful out here, all alone."

Pomona rolls her eyes. She knows that Amber is just staying behind because she can't stand being with her for one more moment, so caught up and so infuriated on the fact she doesn't get a chance to go and die. Victoria grabs Pomona by the hand, pulling her along so the two can rush off the hill outcropping and make their way back to the town square. The reaping will start soon, Pomona can feel it bristle on her skin as she walks.

Both girls stroll side by side as their feet shift over dirt and daises to weathered concrete and stone, designs and initials etched into the stonework to mark which particular worker made said piece. Pomona thinks of it as this person's impact on history. She wonders what hers will be.

Victoria doesn't say anything as they walk, and the clamoring noises collide like a discordant symphony in the sky. Pomona hates loud noises almost as much as she hates being stressed out. Something about the way sharpness and noise can be turned into pain frightens her, and she always brings it back around to the child in her womb. Hasn't what she's already gone through, with the combat and everything, prepared Justice to perhaps be born with problems? The loud noises could inherently fright her unborn child and so they'll turn into a version of cowering imbecile that scatters for a quiet place once those days are come to pass.

Pomona cannot stop thinking about her child.

She just hopes that her Justice ends up not falling short, and that this amazing baby of hers does not end up giving her an early tomb.

* * *

 **Minos Falzon: District 2 Male P.O.V (18)**

* * *

Bells. Whenever there's an important wedding in the district, the officials ring the bells. When a death happens in the family, the officials ring the bells. A fire? Bells. A war? Bells. The reaping? A constant harping of the instrument as if it is President Jade's birthday. So much ringing in fact that eighteen year-old Minos Falzon is starting to train and sharpen his weapons to the beat of the ringing. Persistently, he's bent over with a sharp stick and bone handled knife that goes _up down, up down_ against the tree limb till it is sharper than his glare at the tip.

"I wonder if the District realizes that none of us give a shit about the bells," he wonders aloud. "Do they think that we do not know it's Reaping day?"

Minos is leaning back against an open window, the warm August air gusting against his exposed flesh. His shirt is discarded on the floor in a ball, unnecessary for training. The knife in his hand slips, and up the blade goes, catching itself on his hand, slicing downwards. He cusses to himself, suckling immediately on the open gash he created in his left hand. The lucid taste of copper fills the basin of his mouth as he swallows, letting the grimace and shudders slide down his spine. His warm brown eyes differ from his rugged and scarred body, primarily his arms and chest that are caked black with grime and sweat and other dusty things in the air.

He continues to suck on the wound for a few more seconds, before letting out a satisfying gasp, tossing his head back. His long, flowing locks of rich and dark chocolate black hair dance against the backside of his neck. Minos continues to whittle away, going slightly slower than before so another cut isn't inflicted. If he is to try and count the number of scars he's inflicted on his body since he began training, he'd get lost somewhere in the fifties.

They lace up and down, in jagged curves, or straight lines that point north, south, east and west. Sinew lines filled with coagulated blood and dried tar, the musk of death and the sour smell of hard work wafts off Minos's body. The ruggedness brings more attention to his chiseled face, clean shaven more often than not, with those warm eyes that suck you straight into his soul. His long, ragged hair takes away some of the charm, but then he opens his mouth and all that handsomeness either goes up several notches, or plummets depending on what he says.

"Are you ranting about the District bells again? When are you going to realize that they can't hear you, nor will they stop for you?" a voice smarmily replies back to him, causing Minos to look up from his work.

Oh. He forgot that he wasn't alone. Standing on the mats practicing their archery is one of his closest friends, Corry Jacobs. Built in a same manner like Minos, he's shirtless too, but Minos knows that's because he's trying to get him to watch him train. Corry is seventeen, a year younger than Minos, but chosen to be the 201st Hunger Games District 2 male volunteer. If Minos is anything to go by, he's got a good trainer.

Minos takes in the sight before him. He's never particularly liked being deemed one way or another, always liking to have a taste in both sides of whatever the topic may be. This would stretch over to his sexuality, and Minos learns recently that he's knowingly labeled as someone who's bisexual; to have a preference for both men and women. Although Minos leans to dating and enjoying his company with a girl, there's always an irresistibly charming young man to come and entertain him for a few seconds.

If only Corry Jacobs was irresistible and charming.

Corry goes to take another shot, his body glistening with sweat, Minos appreciating the rigidness in the other male's back as his shoulder blades drew together. "Relax your bow arm," Minos corrects, as Corry has his aim too high where the arrow will more than likely miss the target. His correction goes heard, the arrow is let loose, it flies, and it embeds a few inches off to the left of the bulls-eye, hitting somewhere in the arm.

His friend lets loose a string of cuss words.

Minos makes a tuttering noise with his tongue. "That wasn't very gentleman like."

"As if you are one to talk," Corry snorts.

Minos raises an eyebrow, leaning up from his spot up against the wall. He leaves his knife by the windowsill, taking the serrated stick with him, the tip a ferocious and exposed milky white of a tree branch. He pushes Corry aside and stands firmly on the mat. He clenches the spear with his right hand, guiding it around with the tip of his palm, a slight stabbing pain hitting the center of it.

"There are some things in my life I've always hated. I have had to make the best of my circumstances, you see," Minos begins to drawl, and Corry rolls his eyes, knowing exactly where this conversation is heading. "My mother had me, then got up and left because she didn't realize that sleeping with someone who you're not married to isn't exactly smart. My father raises me alone, and wants to give me a better future..." his grip tightens on the wooden spear, as if it is going to snap, but a lulling voice calms his veins that are suffused with fire. "The District sees me at eleven years old and thinks I'd be perfect for the Career program. I don't want to kill, I don't particularly like doing it, _but_ I do it because it is the only other choice given to me besides death should I disobey. I don't understand why I get so angry at my current situation... emotions have never been an easy thing for me to figure out and perhaps they never will be," Minos picks up the spear now, resting it on his shoulder so the tip is pointed down towards the target with its red acrylic mark for bulls-eye. "I've been told to train on fighting so much that I can't tell what will kill me... on how to tell if I can trust someone... but once again, I make the best of my circumstances. If I die, at least I died fighting."

With that, Minos hefts the spear off of his shoulder, backs up a few lunges, and then runs forward. He takes a slight jump in the air to give him leverage, and then he releases, his throwing arm vaulting outwards. A whistle of air breaks the silence, and then the wooden spear impacts the target, breaking through the leather on the other side.

The spear flings back into the wall, stuck in the plaster that leaves a ghastly echo to clamor around the walls. Minos rights himself, standing up straight, boasting a slightly engorged level of confidence - he's been working at throwing a spear through the practice dummy for five months and he's finally got it - before Corry vaults himself onto Minos.

Both tumble down to the ground, and Corry is gasping praises and words of exultation, before leaning down and kissing him all over. Minos takes in the gorgeous sight of Corry's half-naked body, drinking in the curvaceous hip bones and the taut muscle of his chest. Minos presses his hands against Corry's abdomen, feeling the tightness and Minos is riding on cloud nine as his friend's hands lower and lower, ghosting his hips and then sliding down into his pant leg, palming-

Minos lets out a gasp, and then the damned bells ring again.

It is a thunderstorm outside of disrupting noise, and Corry is so startled by this that he jumps back, nearly ripping the button off of Minos's pants. Minos blushes a profuse scarlet, getting to his feet. Corry turns away in shame, getting his shirt and throwing it on, and the gorgeous view of his friend vanishes from Minos's eyes. He, likewise, grabs his own and dresses back up, still smirking and feeling Corry's hands ghost around the prime spot of flesh. They were so close and the damned District just had to interrupt them.

"I'm going to kill the mayor when I volunteer," Minos jokes half-heartedly, his mind still narrowed on how he nearly just had a sexual encounter in a training facility. "But it looks like I have something to look forward to when I come home, don't I?"

Corry nods, shaking hands with Minos before throwing his arms around him in a hug. "That you do, my friend. That you do."

The two guys part their separate ways. District 2 is a little different, like 1, than all the others in Panem for how their reapings work. Instead of having one long line for every child to be registered in the district, there are twenty-four lines presented; twelve are for the boys aged twelve to eighteen, and the other half for the girls aged twelve to eighteen so it makes registration and the drawing of blood much quicker. Minos has little time for patience, so he prefers the fast paced reality that is District 2's go, go, go mentality.

Because it is District 2, the training facility is placed adjacent to the Justice Hall and the town's square, where Minos never has to traipse for thirty minutes across the district to go and wait in lines like livestock. He wonders if his father will be in the crowd of parents, some who are still nervous for their own children as if they actually believe any of their children reaped will not have a prepositioned volunteer taking their place in a matter of milliseconds. He scans the crowd of the parents in the eighteen year-old section, and his face lights up when his eyes catch hold on a familiar profile.

His father, Gregory Falzon, stands slightly under average adult male height for the men in the district. However, unlike his son, there is no muscular bulk to his form. Instead, Gregory declines the volunteer position when his call comes around as a spry eighteen year-old, nearly thirty years ago. The life of a victor is not for him, with the extravagance and the fakeness he knows he cannot endure, but a heavy price is paid for his disobedience. Like Minos, there are the scars that are on his body from a savage, brutal attack other eighteen year-olds of the training academy give him when Gregory is jumped that evening after declining. It cements Gregory's belief further that the Hunger Games lifestyle is not for him, going to study in District 3 on medicinal practices, now a licensed practitioner of medicine in District 2.

When the leaders of the Training Academy approach him - Gregory, that is - about Minos's appealing future as a Career, for the Quarter Quell of all years to be had, it is an offer he cannot refuse because of the potential repercussions, and so Minos is swept into the spotlight as being the male Career for the 200th year of the Hunger Games... and Gregory cannot be more proud of his son.

Minos sees it in the way his father smiles at him when he'll come home from work to hear about a new milestone Minos made in training, and their conversations over dinner are never clouded by a fact that one day Minos will have to execute these skills against other tributes in an arena, but this is the day that both Falzon's - father and son - must face the music being played for both of them.

The eighteen year-old winces at the slight stinging of the needle drawing blood, and then smudges it slightly so that the Peacekeeper frowns at him and he spins away cackling. Minos waits patiently on his heels, bouncing up and down in the eighteen year-old section for guys, occasionally searching for his father or Corry's face once more.

Already on stage is the microphone and the two bowls with everyone's names to be drawn, but Minos rolls his eyes. All their escort has to do is call out the two volunteers and everything can go smooth as butter. Sitting in the corner together, obviously speaking to one another, are the two victor mentors for the year. There are seven victors for District 2 alive in recent years, and Jade draws them randomly. Minos cranes his neck to see who's being used this year.

Closer to him is the female victor, Wyvern Conran, the newest victor on the team. She won the 192nd Hunger Games, at fifteen, volunteering over the volunteer who had been selected for the females and breaking her nose. She's the fighter of the assembled victors for District 2, constantly getting in trouble whenever she goes to the Capitol because there is something new for Wyvern to be upset about. Her dark black cherry hair is long against her back, highlighted by piercing emerald green eyes that watch everyone's movements. She is described to be a snake, using the woman's weapon of poison until there's nothing left than a rotting carcass that never had any idea they had been played.

Next to her is someone laughable, a person that Minos will never understand how they became a victor, in District 2 of all the districts out there, but a victor all the same. Built with a wire-like frame, just like Gregory Falzon, is Lionel Grisald. Lionel won the 185th Hunger Games, reaped as a twelve year-old. That year had been one of those confusing years where the selected volunteer tribute had died to pneumonia earlier that month despite it being the sweltering August heat. President Dermure, with her vicious long nails, demands that District 2 reap a tribute and there be no volunteers just to see how interesting the game can get. Poor twelve year-old Lionel is picked, who's never even been introduced to the academy at his youthful age... and he outlives them all. When the only other remaining tribute, a girl from District 11 who can lug a wooden cart that size of Minos's body over her head, dies by eating a poisoned apple given to her at a feast a few days earlier... Lionel is declared the winner. He only killed one person, and that was an accident when he scared the girl from District 12 off the mountain she had been climbing up because he wanted to say hello to her in his cave that he had created.

Now, Lionel is twenty-seven and likes to play the guitar. Not exactly helpful in terms of training Careers to fight to the death.

As Minos wonders away at the mentors for this year, he realizes that another body has joined them on stage. The effervescent Robert Glass, a man in his mid-thirties who has been acting as escort for the District since the 189th Hunger Games. Minos admires his body as well, because, like the old Caesar Flickerman, he thinks of new ways to change his last name and wears clothes that resemble his last name for that year. Apparently Robert Glass is now Robert _Frost,_ so he's wearing a white, almost lacy and extremely girly coat with snowflake imprints on them. Minos thinks he looks absolutely ridiculous, but there's a lithe body underneath there with some muscle and a fair face.

Minos wonders, offhandedly, when is the last time he's looked a girl the way he's looked at Corry, or even Robert in the past few weeks. He doesn't get long to think about it, as Robert is ready to get the whole shebang over with and get back on his comfy train to the Capitol, because the peasants in the Districts are nothing but the scum underneath his feet.

The escort taps the microphone, and everyone in the district covers their ears as there is sound interference, and the loudest ear-grating noise erupts from the speakers. Minos glares at the sound equipment piled on stage. Everything loud and noisy is currently ruining his morning, like some sort of Murphy's Law dealing with vibrations of the airwaves.

Robert smiles sheepishly. "So sorry about that!" he exclaims, his hair dyed a sickening and frail pale color to represent frost. "Greetings District 2! Welcome to the 200th year of the Hunger Games, our 8th Quarter Quell!" Unlike in other districts, many of those gathered in the reaping pens clap excitedly along with Robert, almost churning Minos's stomach to produce bile. "I do not like taking a long time for procedures, so we might as well get this show on the road. Ladies first!"

Minos has heard stories of other districts holding their tongues with bated breaths, to follow the escort's every movement like a trained killer until there's nothing but tension in the air. Here? Three of the guys behind Minos are having a conversation on what they're ordering for dinner out of a catalogue. _Rich folk._ Robert has grabbed a piece of paper, read a name, and then a girl from the eighteen year-old section volunteers.

He tries tracking who was picked to represent the females. His mind searches, and then he remembers. Pomona Blair. Minos notices that her hands are covering something near her stomach, standing at an angle where she's facing Robert and not the rest of the crowd. He frowns, wondering what she's trying to hide. Robert places the microphone in her face, Pomona recoiling slightly so it doesn't bust her lip.

"Are you excited for this year's games?"

"Yes," Pomona answers, and Minos appreciates that there isn't a huge sense of debonair around her to make it distasteful.

"Why is that?"

"Something has come up in my life," she says cryptically. "And now it is pushing me to go further beyond my normal limits."

"That's wonderful!" Robert exclaims.

Minos witnesses Pomona's cheery face turn incredibly upside down the moment Robert shifts his attention back to the microphone to announce he's going to pick the male name. He watches her take a step away from the escort, gravitating more towards Wyvern, as if the woman's extra presence is giving her comfort of some sort. Robert has a slip of paper in his hand, he's at the microphone, and then-

"I volunteer!" Minos calls out, his voice full of pride.

He's never been so sure of something in his entire life. Minos dispatches himself from the section of eighteen year-old males and jogs up the steps. Walking up them would take too much time, he feels, and there's time a wasting should he not hasten. Minos has not been dealt with such a shitty hand in life, from being ridiculed for having a single parent in the house instead of the norm, or getting forced expectations down on his shoulders to now not rise up to meet them given the chance.

Robert takes in Minos's appearance, but the eighteen year-old is staring directly into Corry's face, who's full of impasse and slightly void of emotion. Minos sees Corry biting his lower lip, and that causes a flush of heat to wash over his body. Why couldn't his friend be any more attractive? Robert asks Minos a few questions, but he doesn't answer them truthfully as he misses having his hands around Corry's hips, and he longs for Corry's hands to go back into his pants.

"Well there you have it folks! Our tributes for the 200th year of the Hunger Games! Miss Pomona Blair and Mr. Minos Falzon! Shake hands you two," Robert announces, and then orders to the two teens in front of him.

Minos heartily shakes Pomona's hand, but he catches a glimpse of darkness in her eyes. He nearly flinches at it, his smile wavering slightly. He looks at her stomach once more, Pomona's hand no longer covering it, and he catches it slightly being raised.

A lump forms in his throat.

 _No._

She couldn't be.

Minos's eyes widen. If what he is thinking is true... then this is an absolute abomination. His mind slightly shifts.

He's worked so hard to now take pride in appearing in the Hunger Games. Could he truthfully abandon it all for a girl he's never met, and a child he'll never see? Give all of his possible fame and glory for her?

If he is to live by the sword, Minos Falzon needs to be prepared to die by the sword too.

* * *

 **There we have it folks! That was the District 2 reaping, Chapter #9: Die by the Sword. Everything is poetic in this world, whether it be my chapter titles or the characters themselves. So here we have Pomona Blair and Minos Falzon of District 2! Our first 1/3rd of the Career pack has been presented to us. Something that I try doing, and I hope I do it well, is humanize the Careers a little bit. I don't want my SYOT to be like every other SYOT with the same archetype characters presented, but where you do absolutely feel for everyone to some capacity, even if you hate them because they're just plain dislikable. Minos is more humanized here than a typical D2 male would be, definitely because he sees through Pomona's half-assed attempts to hide her debilitating weakness... because do you think when it comes down to it, he'll protect her and give up his possibility at winning for her? Who was your favorite character of the two? I also couldn't help myself with naming a victor Wyvern, it is just too funny to me. Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing, it means a lot to those who stick with me despite always leaving this story to the wayside. The next reaping is for District 11, which shall be fun! I think I need to aim for having these reaping chapters done on the weekend to give me the longest room for typing. So, probably next Saturday will be Chapter #10: Pickings of Despair. Thank you again for reading! I love you all! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

 **~ Paradigm**


	10. Chapter 10: Fruit of Despair

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, Chapter #10: Fruit of Despair. I can't believe that I'm actually posting another reaping chapter in the correct frame of time that isn't a month! *shocker* Thanks again to those that are staying around and reading and reviewing despite my awfulness at updating, because I'm such a tease, I know. Today we're going to see our District 11 tributes, who I've never gotten to write before in other pieces of mine because of my dedication issues, but now we're actually going to get to hear from them. We've got Mr. Aaron Rovelle and Miss Jem Lockehardt with us today, and they're quite the doozy. The first quarter of my senior year finished on Friday, and so as a reminder, the yoke of college is getting tighter and tighter, but I'm gonna make sure to actually stick to deadlines as close as I possibly can - I can only hope, right? - so thank you again for always being on time. Enjoy the District 11 reaping, Chapter #10: Fruit of Despair.**

* * *

 **Aaron Rovelle: District 11 Male P.O.V (14)**

* * *

 _Hard work and no play, it's all my life is for apparently._

Fourteen year-old Aaron Rovelle understands that people generally do not have that thought following them everywhere they go, but he's different and thinks that twenty-four seven. He sits in the fields, picking oranges and cutting down high tree limbs to reach the apples that his fingers are longing for, only to then become filled to the brim with disgust at the other workers around him. There are those who recognize the threat of not actively participating on the job and making asses of themselves by horseplay until the Peacekeepers intervene - Aaron wants to make friends out of those people, they're his kind of folk - and there are those who dawdle even when the cold, muted barrel of a gun is placed to their head. He rolls his eyes at those who still find themselves living a dream and that they'll eventually wake up from some sort of nightmare.

"There is no escaping this place," he'll say to himself under the starry night sky - Aaron doesn't like sleeping in beds, it feels too manufactured, where the sheets smell of Capitol lust and glamour and grossness - with nothing but grass acting as his blanket. "I'm a teenager in the Hunger Games and I must do what I can to survive."

He's eleven years old, a young and scrawny, pale little thing with flesh hanging off of his arms when he asks his parents if he can start training for the Hunger Games. His mother and father naturally eye him with fear reflecting in their expressions, but grant him permission in an awkward sort of way that transforms, now at his current age of fourteen, to full fledged support. His father manages to buy a scythe so Aaron can practice swinging a real vicious weapon and not look silly parading in the dirt with a stick. His mother helps identify poisonous fruits and plants and animals that he skips over in daily training... he's an outlier district tribute training to be a Career.

Aaron Rovelle is the epitome of one who dreams too greatly for his own good. He, with his youthful age, believes he's the ever lasting greatest thing to ever walk the cobblestone streets of District 11 - and in Panem, if he wanted to take a stab at it - but practical suspension of belief is for the adults in his life to tell him that he's working hard and they've never been more proud of him before.

Currently the fourteen year-old is training in the back of the fields by his house, all the twelve to eighteen year-old boys and girls of the district given the day off to become mentally prepared for the reaping. A scythe is in his hand, and as Aaron swings and duels against an invisible opponent, the high blades of grass litter about him like an early winter snow, or glitter and confetti from when his father gave his mother a surprise birthday party.

Under the glare of the sun, his diamond blue eyes flash like spheres of filtered water, sweat streaming steadily down his forehead. He's training with more ferocity than usual, and for a good reason. At fourteen, with only three years of training, Aaron is ready to volunteer for the 200th Hunger Games. In his head, with it being a Quarter Quell, and a Quarter Quell that so far has had none of its itineraries or twists explained, he thinks it is the perfect scenario to go in and wreck people up with his newly 'gained' skills.

He mimes ducking under another tribute's arm, doing an expert somersault to 'slice' the person's throat. Aaron lets out a satisfying gasp, smiling to himself. The boy wipes off his brow, disliking how hot and miserable it is currently outside. He needs to be in an optimal training facility like those in One, Two, and Four. " _Those have air conditioning! And practice dummies! And more weapons than these stupid scythes. All of District 11 uses these things. I want to use something else!"_

If an outsider that is not from District 11, or truthfully any other District 11 citizen that knew or did not know Aaron Rovelle were to hear his plans, their mouths would hang open in a larger mount than the great entrance to the golden Cornucopia horn. Aaron finds the usage of blades to be irrelevant - they're overrated, and he is going to cause the ratings of the games to go up by becoming the greatest victor that'll ever live - and rather take to the task of using his fists. The perfect reason for complete disbelief of the claim is that Aaron Rovelle is a lanky, tall fourteen year-old with the palest skin of any child in District 11. He does not have the fairer, darker and more beautiful skin tone of the African American workers that he jokes with at school. He does not have the build that they do, with hulking muscles and a throwing arm that could toss a javelin across District lines. What Aaron Rovelle has to work with is a cocky, deluded mind, his puny fists that are to do all the talking, and his endurance according to stamina.

Aaron believes he's destined for greatness. He is given seven chances as a child to be routed and picked in the Hunger Games' dastard system of selecting its victims or volunteers depending on how one looks at it. If his chance is passed up, and he's suddenly nineteen years old having been skipped, Aaron deep down feels that there's wasted potential in him. He's not put in so much effort and time into his life to be suddenly tossed to the side like a ragdoll. There's more to him than some peasant farmer who will toil the fields under a harsh sun and toil their troubles back at home to then lather, rinse, and repeat. He's no machine when it comes to the daily routine of District 11. He works in the fields like he's told to under the threat of punishment and death if he doesn't.

On the side, however, and deep down in his heart, Aaron is aspiring for greatness - a greatness that only the Hunger Games can give him if he's lucky, and lucky he is trying to become - to shoot higher than anyone who has ever gone before him. He scoffs at the past few years of District 11's track record in the Games. The boy to be selected for the 199th soils his pants, back and front, before the Cornucopia timer even _ends,_ and in the boy's terror, the District 1 female victor spears him in the side. The eighteen year-old before him, for the 198th year, gets cocky climbing a tree. A branch is snapped, the boy falls, and soon his neck receives the same treatment as that dastard tree branch.

Aaron bothers only caring about the Hunger Games when he's eleven, having realized that there's more than being scared of the Games and then living past them to a boring, old ripe age. He doesn't remember who won or died that year, except that District 11 is wiped out during the Cornucopia bloodbath, and that gets a fire burning under his skin. He is not going to sit by and let his district be dragged in the dirt for their insolence, not if he has anything to say about it, and Aaron Rovelle has a whole lot to mouth off about where the district can go.

He tosses the scythe into the dirt, having tired himself out from training since the crack of dawn. While the other potential victims of the district his age either stay home and cry into their beds, or go into town to have a possible last happy memory, he leaves the rickety wooden porch of his house and runs amok. Through the fields, up the hills, down to the valleys and past the rivers... Aaron is to train and get in as much preparedness as he can. President Jade Dermure will not even know what hit her at this rate.

The fourteen year-old covers his eyes from the sun, knowing not to stare into it directly. His heart saddens somewhat when looking at his skin. Throughout his youthful adolescence that seems to only make his superstitious ego grow, Aaron's always known that there is something slightly different about him from everyone else in the district. He's bullied at school - a little nine year-old Aaron with freckles and not quite as tall standing in the doorway - one day, and as he's crying in his teacher's lap after the hours after over, he hears a word that he's never quite heard before.

The entire conversation replays in his head.

" _Mother... father..." he asks timidly from the doorway to his house. The sun is streaming through around his petite, wiry frame, causing his lithe body to drown in shadows and elongated patches of darkness._

 _His father looks at him from across the kitchen table, a rickety old wooden thing that is sure to fall apart at any moment. "Yes, Aaron?"_

 _"What is it?" his mother questions, joining her husband by the table._

 _Aaron looks down at his feet ruefully, twisting his shoe into the wooden floor. He's unable to look into his parent's eyes, afraid of the emotional response he'll get in return. "What is walbanism?"_

 _His father stutters out a nervous laugh, placing his glasses on the table. "I'm sorry Aaron, I didn't quite catch that..."_

 _His mother looks at her hands, chewing on the inside of her lip. "Did you mean, albinism, Aaron?"_

 _"Yeah..." Aaron's gaze goes to one of the corners._

 _Both of his parents look each other in the eyes, nodding sorrowfully. They walk over to him, both hugging him, and that's all that happens for the conversation. Aaron cries in his parent's arms, sobbing into his father's shirt, and pulling at his mother's hair as they explain to him the reasoning behind why he's so much paler than all of the other Caucasian boys and girls that he plays with, to why he is unable to get a tan when running outside for hours and hours... and the boy is so broken that he does not understand if he's cursed or if he's gifted by such an affliction._

Aaron bites down on his tongue with force to stop thinking about his nine year-old self. Even with his parents giving him the most straightforward answer that they could've given, he's still, well into becoming a teenager, confused. He frowns at times when he catches himself thinking about it, wondering if he asked the right person in the right scenario if it could be irreversible. He thinks that there's a higher up reason for him, being the wonderful fighter that he is and all of that jazz, and having a skin condition that separates him from the pack puzzles him more than anything else in the entire world.

There is a lot in Panem that does not make sense, but out of everything, that is the cincher.

He's never been one for reading, or books, or to stretch that far, knowledge. Knowledge is not going to save him when there's an arrow heading at thirty miles an hour for his liver. It'll be the fight or flight response, and Aaron has to have the common sense to simply roll out of the way and then retaliate with the force of a Peacekeeper truck. His fists will help when his arm falls short, his mouth will rescue him when his body tires. His dreams and aspirations will cause him to rise above when the day is done, when the ground is covered in vermillion and Aaron's laughing as everyone's doubted him and he's still managed to come out on top as the victor.

The word is sweet on his tongue, like a delectable honey that he'll be reminded about for years and years to come.

"A victor..." he repeats, laughing to himself. "I can become a victor..."

At eleven, Aaron thought that this dream of achieving status beyond the norm felt very far off - it is there in the back of his head, resting, quietly, but there all the same - to where it is almost on the same level as finding the elusive Fountain of Youth, a tale where one who drinks from its waters will be granted an appearance of beauty everlasting. With three years of dedication and hard work under his belt, the dream is in reach. It is a shimmering gem in the middle of a field, a ruby waiting to be unearthed, a miniature Fountain of Youth that is just, _oh just_ out of reach.

Aaron sees it. He is going to take it. A golden, gleaming cup resting on a mantelpiece, a piece of glass in his hand as he strikes downwards, _downwards, downwards._ Blood splattering his clothes, an uproar as he wins, as he's hurdled over a mountain that everyone said he couldn't beat. Nothing is greater than achieving your dreams, and Aaron's dream is here. It's ready for him.

The fruit of victory has never tasted sweeter, a final meal before the judgment day approaches, before the hour of Aaron Rovelle's life is decided.

Nothing is going to get in his way.

Nothing is going to stop him.

* * *

 **Jem Lockehardt: District 11 Female P.O.V (17)**

* * *

"Surprise!" shouts Tyler Juno, the current boyfriend to seventeen year-old Jem Lockehardt, revealing a basket he had hidden behind his arms. Jem giggles at the downright adorableness of her love of her life, then gasping outright at what he had gotten her.

"Are these real?" she asks, like a child who cannot believe their eyes. Tyler simply grins as she throws her arms around him in a hug, before grabbing the basket filled to the brim with strawberries, placing them on the ground by her side.

Tyler laughs, his voice full of mirth and brightness, and everything that makes him the ball of sunshine that he is to Jem. The two lovebirds were in the District's town square, waiting for the reaping to begin by having a merry picnic. Jem knows that on a day with such impertinence as this, you can either cry about it back home, or go and enjoy the morning before high noon is to roll around and plague your heart with darkness.

She basks in the sun, enjoying her boyfriend's company as he feeds her one strawberry after the other, juice and seeds spilling down both of their fronts as she nearly swallows one whole. Jem tucks a lock of long, auburn hair behind her ear, hiding her mouth as she nearly spits another strawberry out at a joke Tyler makes. Even though the impending hour is full of despair and sadness, she cannot help but laugh and merrily enjoy her morning. It reassures her in times of troubled thought that for the past two years she's had Tyler directly on stage to keep her comforted, to make sure everything is going according to plan.

She never has to worry, because her boyfriend, Tyler Juno, at eighteen years-old is the victor of the 195th Hunger Games, having been reaped and won at thirteen. With his elusive catlike brown eyes and tanned skin complexion, he and Jem pass off as brother and sister despite there being only a courting relationship between them. Jem remembers watching those particular Games, only twelve, with wide eyes behind her parent's couch. She had been forbidden to watch them, even though she's just survived her reaping and seen two unlucky thirteen year olds brought to the stage, kicking and screaming.

It is no secret that Tyler is the fan favorite that year, with appealing looks for someone of an outer district, nabbing a decent training score of a nine, and actually making Silver Castle, the arrogant prick that the Master of Ceremonies is, take interest in a tribute for once. When Tyler is declared the victor of the 195th year of the Hunger Games, Jem makes it her mission to get to know who he is, amazed by the fact that someone has come out of a horrible situation, made the best of their circumstances, and won.

Jem catches herself looking at Tyler, who is preoccupied in watching the Peacekeepers start to set up for the reaping. The lines are drawn with chalk, the ropes splayed out, the table for drawing blood put in place... little by little the bright atmosphere of the town square becomes heavier and heavier by each clunk of metal, or each order barked out in harsh Capitol accents.

Tyler shakes his head with disdain. "I've seen this four years in a row, and every single time I still get nervous about it."

"I'm sorry..." Jem looks at him with sorrow in her eyes. She's unable to imagine how her boyfriend must feel, having to go and constantly be in the eye of the Capitol and all of Panem. She's surprised that the president hasn't marched up to her door and demanded how she snagged the dreaming cattle of District 11. There's hushed whispers around the district that Jem simply has the victor under a spell - _how could anyone love someone so hideous,_ a girl wonders with contempt lacerating her words, syllables doused in a venomous fire - and one day Tyler will be snapped awake and pluck her heart out for the gross beast of a woman that Jem apparently is.

Jem does not have a lot of confidence in herself on several things, looks being one of them. She feels that her drawn back eyes accentuate the fact she is not like everyone, with a hair color that does not match her skin tone, or that her voice is slightly higher and more of a whine than a typical drawl. Asking her parents about it over dinner, she learns that she is a mix of several old American nationalities, back before Panem turned around to become a physical entity.

A Korean father, and a mixed mother - Jem learns that this is someone who is black and white for their ethnicity - that gives her the unorthodox look in a district full of either white, pasty skin that is translucent, or a tone darker than the night that blackens under every long hour under the sun. For what is going in Jem's favor is everything she has control over. She's always loved working, and by that, in her regard is to work her way up a corporate latter with hard work and an ethic full of honor and responsibility. It makes her stand out from the crowd in a more positive light in comparison to where her appearance is concerned. She finds herself blessed in the regard that she's in love with a man who not only has won the Hunger Games, but takes her for who she is; a human being with a heart that beats blood and sees the world in more than black and white, but in colors.

Radiant colors that douse the streets purple and the walls fuchsia, where the sun is an obsolete ball of gray in an emerald clouded sky. Jem dreams in colors, she visualizes the world around her with an optimistic view, like Tyler, that is bright and alive to make better circumstances than their current ones. Water is not just a clear, crystalline blue, but a carnation pink that smells of warm roses and apples and an orchard that she can call home. Anger is a hogwash of bitter red and stunning black, engaging and monstrous, but beautiful all together.

She's caught up in her thoughts, Tyler nudging her out of a stupor when she has her gaze transfixed on the table for registration.

"What's the matter?"

Jem blinks, her face softening visibly. "Nothing," she answers. "I was just painting the world in a different light."

"Is that so?" Tyler crosses his arms over one another. "And what do I look like to you?"

"Purple."

"Any specific shade?"

"No," Jem shakes her head in dissent. "Just purple."

"Any meaning behind it?"

"Royalty."

Tyler's facial expression darkens, tanking the entire conversation before it is truthfully able to even begin. "I never asked to be royalty, you know."

"I know. But there's nothing you can do about it, can you?" Jem points out. "You're making the best of your situation, the best of your circumstances."

Her boyfriend opens his mouth to speak, but he's cut off by a loud burst of static. They both have their heads turn to the stage, where the escort for District 11 is tapping away at the microphone like an idiot. Jem's heart swells in her throat. That only means one thing; the reaping is about to begin. In no time at all she'll be separated from Tyler, for a little over a week, and she'll survive without him, but her heart longs to join him on stage in victory one day. To taste the fruit of success like he has, to become the dreamer she's always felt like she was in time's past.

"Right," Tyler nods. "It looks like they're about to start. Are you ready for another one?"

"I am."

"That's nice."

"Has there been any talk of volunteers this year?" Jem asks. District 11, although not a Career district by any stretch of means, sometimes has an odd man out that'll leap forward for short lived glory to only go down in a heap of flames.

Tyler chews on the inside of his cheek. "Yeah. One. The male tribute," he sighs loudly. "Some stupid fourteen year-old kid who actually believes he has a chance of winning this thing. Apparently his ego is almost as large as his deluded mind."

"What do you do on the train ride to the Capitol? After all of this is over?" she questions. "I can only imagine that those rides are never fun. Seeing you have to lecture and mentor. It must be awful."

Tyler runs a hand through his long locks of black hair. "I'm usually sleeping. I can't stand or bear the thought of looking at these sad, downturned faces that remind me of my own. I have been there before, and the memories only seem too real..." he stutters out a nervous laugh. "Normally my uneaten dinner is laying at my feet because I fall asleep in the dining car. Last year it was salmon and collard greens. The room stunk the rest of the ride."

Jem cracks a smile. "That's your usual evening? Have you ever felt hope before?"

He nods. "Sometimes. Not every time, but sometimes."

"I'd vouch for that."

"I hate it," Tyler admits. "Not being able to hope."

Jem shudders. "The life of a victor must be awful." Ironically, half of her wants to taste it. Taste the despair, the sweet success, the riches, and the sorrow.

Tyler is honest in his reply. "You don't know half of it, Jem," he helps her up, bunching the picnic blanket in his arms. Jem looks around to see that people are starting to file in for registration. Parents clinging onto their twelve year-old sons and daughters, kids who look like they've gone forever without a meal... Jem finds it all so incredibly disheartening. Tyler picks up the basket of strawberries. "If you don't mind, I think I'm going to take these with me and give them to the tributes on the train. A little respite of happiness in all of this sadness. Do you mind?"

"No," Jem shakes her head. She hugs Tyler tight. "I love you."

"I love you too," he whispers. "When this is all over, don't leave for home yet. I'll see if I can say goodbye to you while the tributes are saying goodbye. Okay?"

"Okay."

He presses a warm hand against her cheek, noticing how cold Jem's skin actually is. "See you on the other side, Lockehardt."

Jem closes her eyes at the close touch, his words still faint and fluttering against the nape of her neck. She watches as her boyfriend begins to head towards the stage, still unsure exactly how she's dating a victor in the midst of all this madness. Sighing, she dutifully merges into the line for registration, her eyes never leaving Tyler's body as he joins the stage to talk to the escort, mayor, and other victors gathered from District 11. Jem fears that if she loses sight of Tyler, then everything will crumble in her hands like a wet sandcastle that is unable to stay afloat after all this time.

She flinches inwardly at the sharp needle going into her skin, the smear of blood on clean, flawless white paper. The blood smear is a sickening, foul, brackish green like vomit, which causes Jem's stomach to twist and curdle. Jem files into the seventeen year-old female section on the left side, all the way over where she's unable to see Tyler. Even though she cannot see him, she knows and feels his presence. As long as her victorious boyfriend is near her, nothing will go wrong. She's untouchable.

The girl is all by herself as the rest of the district starts to file in. There's talk and murmuring in the crowd about some volunteer for the boys, which Jem remembers Tyler talking about. The sweetness of a bursting strawberry lingers on her tongue even after the buzz of the crowd has died down, and when it is time for the dastard, _awful_ show to begin. Apparently there is a massive influx of female twelve year-olds this year for District 11, and Jem's heart warms at the fact that it might not be her who gets picked this year. She's striving to be seven for seven, with seven years of having her life at risk, and seven years of living through it.

For a split second, before doom is to fall on the agricultural district, she gets a glimpse of Tyler and the other victor who will be joining him in the honors of mentoring. As Tyler Juno is young and spry at eighteen years old, having won the 195th year, the female counterpart for him, Jenny Pratter is a catty, old bat. With luscious and glossy dark maroon colored skin, and large effusive chocolate brown eyes, she glares into the heart of everyone she disrespects. Having won the 171st year of the Hunger Games, until Tyler's win, she had been the newest victor for them in a twenty year grace period. After Tyler's victory, the male victor before him had died of a heart attack, leaving them two to be the sole ones for responsibility of carrying children on their backs.

Jem wants to keep her focus on her boyfriend - _breathe normally Jem, the world is still in a normal color for you,_ she coaches herself silently, _you're okay_ \- but it is cut short by the escort stepping up to the plate. Jem rolls her eyes at the prim and perfect Delaney Court, who has apparently been the escort for District 11 since her parents started going, and that had to have been twenty plus years ago. In order for her to keep up with the latest Capitol trend of not showing your age, Delaney's hair is a sickening blonde that is too blonde, like butter that drips off of greasy fingers. A downright hideous shade of eye shadow swathes the older woman's face as she totes and lumbers up to the microphone. Her plump frame blocks Tyler from Jem's view, but there's a positive with it all.

"At least I don't look like her," she mutters to herself.

Delaney taps the microphone again, and like earlier, she thumps it too hard and almost tips the microphone stand off the stage. A disruption of static disturbs a few crows gathered on the ridge of the Justice Building, and Jem winces inwardly in pain, expecting Delaney's all too familiar, and _way_ too peppy voice to turn everything into a mockery of things.

"Hullo District 11!" Delaney shouts, with far too much pep and energy for the event of sending two sheep off to a slaughter. Jem likes that extended metaphor - _we're all sheep led to a slaughter, fattened up on the way, doused in a false chemical, and then our eye sockets are gouged out before we can say a word_ \- and hums to herself about it, ignoring the escort's next few sentences. "I am so happy to be back for another year! We came close, didn't we? We came super close to another victor last year, and now it is a Quarter Quell of all years! That means it is a new dawn, a new place for us to achieve happiness! Let's get it District 11!"

"Will someone shut her up?" a voice shouts out from the eighteen year-old male section.

Delaney flushes a furious shade of amaranthine, pouting. "Fine! As usual then, ladies first!" she huffs pointedly. In a stamp of anger, the escort stomps over to the bowl holding all the female names for the reaping. Not even thinking, she dumps the entire bowl onto the stage, snatching a single one as it falls out. Jem wants to stutter a laugh, and she nearly does when she gets a glimpse of Tyler's face as he watches the chaos unfold. Delaney, like she did to the bowl, stomps back to the microphone, tearing off the black tape. "Jem Lockehardt!" her voice booms out over the district.

Both Tyler and Jem's facial expressions of amusement change faster than the turn of a new season.

 _Error._

 _Mind does not compute._

Jem is standing there in her little corral, all content as a cow, content as a sheep led to the slaughter with her world being painted in acrylic colors. Delaney Court, the old git that she is, is doused in childish shades of yellow and pink to make a mockery of her. Now, Jem can barely stand up straight. Everything is wrong. The ground turns to mud, the gravel shifting and the colors waning on the brink of overconsumption and over realism. The ground is a bleeding, furious red that screams anger and reeks of death.

Someone pushes her out of line, and she realizes with a somewhat sluggish mind that a Peacekeeper is dragging her up the steps. This cannot be happening. The sky is darkening by the second, until it is a gray that has hidden away the sun, and Jem wants to vomit. She's dropped to her knees, roughly on stage, and over the side of it she pukes out the strawberries she and Tyler had shared on their date.

She can barely hear his voice over her retching.

"Someone volunteer for her! Someone! PLEASE! Don't do this to my Jem!" Tyler screams out at the crowd, but no female lifts a finger.

Jem can hear them all now. _She deserves it. She's an abomination. We're getting rid of the abomination, the shame of our loins._

Over the din of Tyler's agonized screaming that suddenly stops, Delaney shouts out a name for the boy tribute, someone else's voice breaking through. "I volunteer!"

She blacks out before she can fully see a wiry, pale boy take to the stage, declaring him as fourteen year-old, future winner of the 200th Hunger Games, Aaron Rovelle.

Jem's head hits concrete with one more retch, black ants boring into her skull.

She wants to taste the fruit of victory, her mind reminds her, she wants to live the life that Tyler lives and join him on the stage, hand in hand, for glory shall enshroud her every movement.

A bitterness fills her mouth.

She's tried the fruit of victory.

It is now known as the fruit of despair.

* * *

 **There we are ladies and gentlemen! That was the District 11 reaping, Chapter #10: Fruit of Despair. Man, that felt good, I got that out in two hours. So, we have our two tributes from the land of fruit of despair, Mr. Aaron Rovelle and Miss Jem Lockehardt. After the polarizing reaction to Pomona (who I actually like), I hope that maybe Jem is a little more appealing to some of you. I really enjoyed both of their points of view this chapter, as they really have a lot in common in terms of wanting a taste of something more, albeit different ways of already achieving it. I like working in the chapter titles, so I hope this one was engaging enough.**

 **I extended the idea of a tribute dating a victor, and I think it turned out quite fortunate - lol, I hope! - so let me know what you thought of these two saps. Who, out of the gang we've met of the ten tributes out of twenty-four do you love, like, neutrally feel about, dislike, and hate? I'm curious to see where that'll go.**

 **Sometime in the next two weeks I'll have the next reaping out for Chapter #11. After doing the RNG, the number I've gotten is District 5! I'm happy that it is a higher up number, but it isn't 1, 3, or 4 that I was really wanting to write. So, sometime in the next two weeks I'll have the District 5 reaping, Chapter #11: The Alchemist of Sorrow, out. Thank you all so much for reading! Please review and let me know what you thought of the chapter! Have an amazing day! Bye! Love you all!**

 **~ Paradigm**


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